The World Unseen

Cape Town in the 1950s, as apartheid tightens its grip, is no place for a woman who refuses to follow the rules, but Amina (Sheetal Sheth) refuses anyway. She runs a cafe with her business partner Jacob, wears trousers, drives her own car and serves customers of every race in defiance of the law. Miriam (Lisa Ray) has arrived from India to a very different life, dutifully raising her children under a controlling husband, Omar (Parvin Dabas), on an isolated farm. When the two women meet, an unexpected attraction opens a door Miriam never knew was there, and lessons behind the wheel become the first steps toward questioning everything that binds her. Writer-director Shamim Sarif adapts her own novel into a sweeping, sensual period drama about freedom in a society built on its denial. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and earned multiple South African Film and Television Award nominations.