Long Night's Journey into Day

Four stories brought before S Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the forum established in the wake of apartheid to negotiate a compromise between the needs of punitive and restorative justice. They concern the black killers of US student Amy Biehl; the police officers who abducted and murdered the Cradock Four; the ANC fighters who bombed a Saturday night bar in Durban; and the undercover agents who assassinated the Gugulu Seven 'terrorists'. The testimonies of perpetrators and relatives of the dead - both to the commission and to camera - bear witness to the social and emotional fissures wrought by apartheid, but it's the evidence of the healing process at work, with all its painful, grievous and unpredictable effects, which provides the real fascination of the film.