A generational reckoning

Film strips the myth of success, revealing the cost behind the polished surfaces and family pride

- Kibo Ngowi

We see a woman asleep in bed. She’s wearing make-up and earrings, so it’s clear the previous night must have ended abruptly. The puke stains on her pillow and the right side of her face point to the same conclusion.

She’s woken up by the incessant sound of hammering.

Not quite sure where the sound is coming from, or where she is for that matter, the only clarity available is the feeling of having been hit by a truck and barely surviving.

She slowly sits up on the bed, sunlight streaming through the curtains, and looks around the room. She realises where she is. The first words out of her mouth: “Oh, fuck.”

And with that, writer-director Karabo Lediga throws us right into the world of Sabbatical, her first feature film, set for nationwide release on 9 May.

The woman we are first introduced to in the throes of a historic hangover is Lesego, a successful investment banker. In the midst of a personal crisis, she has turned up at her childhood home, unannounced, telling her mother Doris that she’s taking a sabbatical from work.

The truth is that Lesego, once a rising star on the CEO track at top investment firm LouwFin, has been suspended and placed under investigation for defrauding a miners’ pension fund. She’s suspected of stealing millions from the families of deceased miners.

An investigator is hot on her heels and she’s fled her life in Johannesburg to seek the comfort of the familiar surroundings of her youth, 40km away, in Thorntree.

The setting for Sabbatical is a world Lediga knows well, having grown up in Pretoria herself, before moving to Johannesburg for university, and never quite returning, staying on to pursue a career in film and television. That is until major surgery forced her to move back home for a period of six weeks.