00:00The film Laundry takes place in a whites-only neighborhood of 1960s Johannesburg.
00:06Kutala's family runs Laundry under the apartheid regime.
00:11This is based on a story that happened to my mother's family.
00:16Those events happened in the mid-50s.
00:20However, this film is set in the late 60s
00:24because it was a very interesting moment in terms of the beginning of the resuscitation of the struggle
00:34after, you know, the leaders had been imprisoned.
00:39There had been a destruction of any resistance.
00:42So this was a moment where there was really no one fighting for black people.
00:49Out, out, out. No doubt.
00:57I'm quite a collaborative director.
01:00I'm always interested to see the ideas that the performers have.
01:08And I feel that I had, particularly with my lead,
01:13he worked very hard and asked many questions before we even got on set.
01:18So I was very excited to see what he would do.
01:22The director says South Africans need to see that activists, thinkers and filmmakers
01:27continue to speak the truth.
01:29The conversation on reparations and restitution and redistribution of wealth in South Africa has come to a complete stop.
01:40It's completely ignored.
01:42And we just act like everyone must just carry on and build their lives.
01:47But we've been stolen from.
01:49Not having that conversation is about entrenching in injustice and allowing room for more injustice.
01:56This year's Geneva International Film Festival and Human Rights Forum presents a selection of fiction and documentary films
02:05that examine authoritarian and international abuses.
02:09It also highlights collective struggles.
02:13Laundry, directed by Zama Makwanazi, is part of the competition for the 2026 edition
02:18under the theme between resistance and revolt, the power of images.
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