On Tuesday night SABC1 premieres a three-part series of documentaries called, Where the Heart Belongs.
The 26-minute doccies are produced by Curious Pictures (The Lab, Hard Copy, Rhythm City, Font) and play back to back from Tuesday 10 February to 24 February 2009 at 21h00 to celebrate Valentine's Day.
Each one relates random South African stories of love through different periods of our history.
Made by five different South African directors - the films aim to find a new language to talk about our private worlds. Some stories, like that of Charmaine Phillips and Peter Grundlingh, or Bubbles Mpondo and Jannie Beetge, are stories which are known to many South Africans. Others are unknown - ordinary people who have had extraordinary love affairs.
The documentaries are as follows:
Bubbles and Me On: Tuesday, 10 February 2009 at 21h00
The year was 1976. Bubbles was a model and part of the “in crowd,” a beautiful woman who was not afraid of apartheid and the times she lived in. Jannie was a white Afrikaans body builder and owned a gym in Johannesburg. He was a member of the nationalist party.
Jannie fell madly in love with Bubbles - Bubbles fell in love with Jannie “in her own peculiar way.”
Bubbles and Me tells the story of their fated relationship through the eyes of Bubbles' daughter Jackie Luthuli and explores her journey of coming to terms with the mother she never knew.
Director: Marie Human
Editor: Vuyani Sondlo
Camera: Giulio Biccari
Music: Phillip Miller
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Charmaine’s Story On: Tuesday, 10 February 2009 at 21h30
Charmaine Phillips and Peter Grundlingh: two lovers who went on a killing spree in 1981 and murdered four people along the road between Durban and Johannesburg. The couple captured the imagination of many South Africans at the time, as much for the brutality of the murders as the beauty of Charmaine Phillips.
Charmaine confessed to the killings (she was 19 at the time) but the judge didn’t believe her and her lover was hanged. She is serving a life sentence for murder in prison. This documentary looks at the couples obsession and betrayal through letters, archives of the trial, taped confessions, news broadcasts and police photographs.
Director: Sara Blecher
Editor: Robbie Thorpe
Camera: Guilio Biccari
Music: Phillip Miller
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The Moon in My PocketOn: Tuesday, 17 February 2009 at 21h00
The Moon in My Pocket is about the love between a Robben Island political prisoner Wilton Mkwayi and his lover and later, wife, Irene.
Wilton Mkwayi, a senior MK commander was convicted of treason during the Rivonia Trial in 1966. For 20 years, he applied for permission from the prison authorities to marry his sweetheart, Irene Khumalo but was denied permission each year.
In the 21st year of his imprisonment, they were finally allowed to marry but six months later she died of cancer. He was released from prison shortly thereafter.
Told through letters, interviews and reconstructions, this documentary tells the story of a love which almost survived against all odds.
Director: Kgomotso Matsunyane
Editor: Desi Heynacker
Camera: Jonathan Kovel
Music: Phillip Miller
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The Doctor and Mrs MOn: Tuesday, 17 February 2009 at 21h30
A love held so secret that no-one knew, The Doctor and Mrs M is set in a time past, a world detached from day to day life.
Mrs M had a secret affair with her married “doctor” for 41 years. Now, 83, Mary relives the story for her friends during the course of an afternoon’s tea party. Told through the diary she kept through the relationship, interviews and photographs, the film examines passion, transgression and the meaning of love that has no expectations, no ties that bind.
Director: Sharon Cort
Editor: Henion Han
Camera: Jonathan Kovel.
Music: Phillip Miller
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White Girl in Search of the PartyOn: Tuesday, 24 February 2009 at 21h00
In 1943, Pauline Podbrey, the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants to South Africa fell in love at first sight with the dashing communist party hero, H.A Naidoo.
The events that followed, including her listing as a communist, their exile in Hungary and London and HA’s disillusion with the communist party and subsequent isolation, tells a story about love and context, heroism and romance.
Told through the eyes of Pauline, now living in Cape Town, the testimony of their daughters and friends, White Girl in Search of the Party is a film about South Africa's history and heroes and explores the idea that political passion and love are often intertwined.
Director: by Pat van Heerden
Camera: Jonathan Kovel
Editor: Isa Lee Jacobson
Music: Phillip Miller
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The Sins Of The FatherOn: Tuesday, 24 February 2009 at 21h30
Last year, two deceased people, Gintshwase Mntambo and Hontshi Buthelezi, were finally joined in wedlock in a traditional ceremony in the hills of rural Zululand.
The couple were prevented from marrying in 1909 because of a deep rift between the two families and the wedding was a desperate move by the deceased couple’s grandchildren to appease the angry spirits of their ancestors.
This documentary tells their wedding; a story about love and betrayal and witchcraft.
Director: Kgomotso Matsunyane
Camera: Frasier Mpahlele
Editor: Vuyani Sondlo
Music: Phillip Miller