Beyond Forgiving

In 1993, as Apartheid neared its end, Letlapa Mphalele — director of operations for the military wing of the Pan-Africanist Congress — ordered reprisal massacres in response to the killing of black schoolchildren. In one of those attacks, Ginn Fourie lost her only daughter.

Years later, she forgave him.

When Letlapa speaks of that moment in this film, he says it touched something deep inside him and restored his humanity. That restoration — and what the two of them chose to do with it — is what Beyond Forgiving is about.

A black atheist man and a white Christian woman, bound together by an act of violence neither can undo, had since devoted themselves to bringing a new spirit of forgiveness and community to South Africa — a country scarred by its past and struggling with the highest crime levels in the world. Their differences in faith, race and history are real. What unites them is more powerful still: the shared conviction that healing is possible, and that it begins with a choice.

This is a film about what lies beyond forgiveness — not the forgetting, but the work that follows.

Awards include the Award of Excellence for Best Director (IFFPIE) and an Award of Merit at the Best Shorts Competition (2013).