28Up

The South Africa ‘Up’ series follows the personal journeys of a diverse group of young South Africans, born in the last years of apartheid and filmed every seven years since. First filmed aged 7 in 1992, two years before the first non-racial elections, the twists and turns of their personal lives have been charted at ages 7, 14 and 21 against the backdrop of South Africa’s recent history. In the three ‘28Up’ films, filmmaker Angus Gibson revisits them in 2013. Cutting between their younger and adult selves, a complex picture emerges. A few have moved up the ladder while others struggle with poverty. Some now have their own children, while HIV/AIDS has devastated too many lives. Money and work, love and family, race and religion remain recurring themes with violence never very far away. These films reveal a rich seam of lively, poignant and sometimes tragic stories which give intimate expression to the epic landscape of contemporary South Africa.