“There have been terrible abuses towards humanity exacted under apartheid that the film is in a position to visualise, on behalf of those who survive them. Zulu Love Letter has bravely created a new cinematic space for representing historical truths.” - Jacqueline Maingard, University of Bristol. 

Thandeka still feels the pain and anger caused by the soul-crushing apartheid. Despite Johannesburg’s new optimism, the 30-something single mother and journalist can’t shake her personal demons. Her work has suffered miserably and she has alienated herself from her family.

Thandeka desperately wants to reach out to her 13-year-old deaf daughter Mangi, who has spent most of her life with her grandparents while her mother has been fighting for the cause. Mangi has begun to lose faith in her mother as she has been kept unaware of the price Thandeka has paid for challenging the system.

Thandeka is forced to face her haunting past when contacted by Me’Tau, the aged mother of a student activist, Dineo, she once wrote about.  

10 YEARS LATER

"All post-war societies are challenged to confront traumas from the repression and violence of the past. Nearly a decade after the inauguration of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the past still continues to haunt South Africa’s new political system. Mothers are still mourning, families are still searching for the remains of loved ones, and communities are still divided within themselves and across racial and class lines.

ZULU LOVE LETTER follows the daily struggles of female journalist Thandeka, whose sense of hope is still being tested, years after having suffered from horrific crimes under Apartheid."

SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN

"It is no secret that South African women have played an important role in the resistance against Apartheid. It is not a coincidence that since 1994, South Africa has one of the largest number of women in government. Women were the key force behind the changes that we have experienced."

FREE AND EDUCATED SINGLE WOMAN

"ZULU LOVE LETTER takes place around the city of Johannesburg and its neighboring township of Soweto. There is hope and a cautious excitement in some people and others are very skeptical of the changes around them. The historical moment of transition between the old and the new demands that Thandeka look inward and take stock of her life. Thandeka is typical of many of South Africa’s free and educated single women. In the past, her political and career commitments were achieved at the expense of personal and familial responsibilities. The challenge now is how to negotiate between her career as a journalist, her uneasy relationship with her deaf daughter and the strains with her parents because of her inability to make a matrimonial decision."

Taken from the press kit available here

The film won ten prestigious international awards and received over a dozen official invitations to premier international film festivals, including the very prestigious Venice Film Festival.

Here is the list: 

"Venise Film Festival" (Italy 2004) - SELECTION
 "Toronto Film festival" (Canada 2004) - SELECTION
"Tanit d'Argent - Carthage Film Festival" (Tunisia 2004) - WINNER
"Grand Prix Festival de Mons" (Belgium 2005) - WINNER
"9ème Prix de l'Inalco - Fespaco" (Burkina faso 2005) - WINNER
"Best Actress for Mpumi Malatsi - Captown World Cinema Festival" (South africa 2005) - WINNER
"Prix long métrage du jury au Festival Cinéma d'Afrique d'Angers" (France 2005) - WINNER
"Prix spécial de l'Union Européenne - Fespaco" (Burkina faso 2005) - WINNER
"Prix de la meilleure Interprétation Féminine pour Pamela Nomvete Marimbe - Fespaco" (Burkina faso 2005) - WINNER
"Prix UNICEF pour la promotion des Droits de la Femme - Fespaco" (Burkina faso 2005) - WINNER 

"In this richly evocative and compelling film, the director imaginatively picks through the haunting, psychic debris of South Africa’s political history. Juxtaposing personal and national struggles, past and present, loss and recovery, emotional distances and bridges, trauma and healing, this unsparing exploration of history’s often hidden recesses embodies women’s experiences as well as tenacious spirit and, remarkably, offers an intricate tapesty of hope."

Jude G. Akudinobi, University of California - Santa Barbara

"Films like In My Country have tried but failed to capture the complexity of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the unfinished business of apartheid. Zulu Love Letter, a thoroughly South African film gets the closest by far."

Sean Jacobs, University of Michigan 

Durban-born (South Africa, in 1955), Ramadan SULEMAN was one of the founders of the Dhlomo Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa's first "black" run theatre. He studied film directing in Paris and at the London International Film School.
Suleman has directed several documentaries and short films.

His first feature, Fools, has won the Silver Leopard at Locarno in 1997. Zulu Love Letter is his second feature film.