Yesterday (2004 film)
| Yesterday | |
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Yesterday film poster
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| Directed by | Darrell Roodt |
| Produced by |
Anant Singh Helena Spring |
| Written by | Darrell Roodt |
| Starring |
Leleti Khumalo Harriet Lenabe |
| Distributed by | HBO Films (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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96 minutes |
| Country | South Africa |
| Language | Zulu |
Yesterday is a 2004 South African movie written and directed by Darrell Roodt. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 77th Academy Awards. It also won Best Sound and Best Editing at the inaugural edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards. The film tells a story of a young mother, Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo), who discovers she has AIDS. Her husband, a migrant mine laborer, rejected her despite being the one that infected her. Her ambition becomes to live long enough to see her daughter, Beauty, go to school. This film is the first commercial feature-length production in Zulu.
Yesterday is a Zulu mother living with her seven-year-old daughter, Beauty, in their rural village of Rooihoek (English translation means literally "red corner"), in Zululand, South Africa. Every day of her life is spent in the hard work of tilling the field to plant enough food for them, fetching water, cutting firewood and hauling it home, all while also trying to keep her daughter stimulated and occupied. She strikes up a friendship with the new teacher who arrives in the village.
Yesterday is plagued by a persistent cough and feelings of weakness. She goes to the local clinic, which is an extremely long walk for her and Beauty. She waits all day in the long queue to see the doctor, only to be turned away at the end of the day without having seen the doctor. She brushes it off, saying that she is not that ill. When Beauty finds her mother collapsed on the doorstep of their home, she runs to call her mother's friend, the teacher. Yesterday consults a traditional healer, but her teacher friend insists she return to the clinic. The teacher pays for a taxi to the clinic so that she can get there early enough to see the doctor; the teacher also takes care of Beauty for the day. The doctor who sees Yesterday asks her where she got her name from, and Yesterday explains that her father named her Yesterday because, "He said things were better yesterday than today." The doctor tells Yesterday that she is sick (that is, with AIDS) and that she probably got it from her husband, who is away working in a mine. After hearing the news, Yesterday is very upset. Yesterday understands that she will die from this disease, leaving her daughter alone.
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