In
1993, Amy Biehl,
a white American Fulbright scholar and anti-
apartheid activist, was living in South Africa helping with the preparations
for the country's first democratic election. On the day before her scheduled
return to the U.S., she was brutally attacked and stabbed to death as
she was driving friends home in the township of Guguletu, outside Cape
Town.
Four young black
South Africans were convicted of her murder and imprisoned. Each then
requested amnesty from the TRC, pointing to the racially-polarized atmosphere
at the time, the then-popular slogan, "one settler, one bullet," and
their assumption that Biehl was a white South African.
In July, 1997, the
filmmakers accompanied Amy Biehl's parents as they attended the hearings
in South Africa and testified in support of the Commission's goals,
stating, to the surprise of many, that they would not oppose amnesty.
Then the Biehls
went a step further, meeting with the family of Mongezi Christopher
Manqina, one of their daughter's murderers, after Mongezi's mother had
sent Mrs. Biehl a message expressing sorrow at
her son's responsibility for Amy's death This story examines how, in
the midst of their own personal tragedy, the Biehls have managed to
honor their daughter's visions for a new South Africa.
It also explores
the complex issues raised by the killing: should convicted murderers
be granted amnesty because the political circumstances of the times
induced them to commit the crime? How does this mob murder compare with
the calculated, state-sponsored killings perpetrated by the South African
police force?
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