Karabo Lediga Reflects on the Cultural and Revolutionary Questions in “Sabbatical”

Karabo Lediga’s directorial feature-length debut film Sabbatical, is a semi-autobiographical film inspired by a homecoming, after years away. However, in Lediga’s modified retelling, Lesego (Mona Monyane), a successful and ambitious banker has taken her identity and (Clementine Mosimane), is the director’s fictional mother. The film, which recently arrived on Prime Video after a successful world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam(IFFR) and theatrical distribution in South Africa, is an immersive interrogation on the cultural and psychological impacts of the capitalist-driven and isolating world on an African mind. 

Centering the strained relationship between Lesego and Doris, the film explores how  culturally harmful seeking of acceptance into White spaces, a signal of social and financial success, can be for the ambitious South African. As shown with Lesego’s character, it creates an interloper consciousness as the South African seeking acceptance in these White and elitist spaces feel unaccepted. And their home and immediate community feel cramped and unable to accommodate their dream. Sabbatical is inspired by the director’s personal introspection, but it’s the cultural, political and revolutionary question it poses that shapes its cinematic and intellectual force. 

In this conversation with Culture Custodian, Lediaga explores the film’s political intention, the conflict between individualistic and communal-oriented thinking in a capitalist world and the prize of ambition. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sabbatical is semi-autobiographical, seeing that it was inspired by your story. How comforting and confronting is it, interrogating and introspecting on this personal story while writing and directing the film? 

The film’s starting point is personal because, after graduating from high school,  I had been living away from home until I had to return to my mother’s house to recover from surgery. For that period, I was at her mercy and it was triggering in a way, because of the dynamic of our relationship. I felt hostage to her care, love and judgement. Thus, being with her triggered the loving and tense part of our relationship. And, that was where the idea for the film started. But, I didn’t want the story to be boring. It needed drama and be filled with characters outside of my immediate experience even if the core, tension, setting and  characters are loosely based on my experiences. 

It wasn’t confrontational while writing the script. Writing the story made me feel like a puppet master who was having fun with this raw material. That confrontation wasn’t present while writing and directing the film. I dealt with it early on. But, maybe later I will have to unpack that. Even when my mother saw the film, she was sure it wasn’t her being represented onscreen even if there might have been similarities. 

Thuli (Lethabo Mpoko) mirrors Lesego. Why was this character that mirrors Lesego’s childhood rebellion, displacement and ambition important? And, what are your thoughts on these social issues? 

I created Thuli to mirror and give a sense of Lesego’s teenagehood. And, with  Koketso (Tsholofelo Maseko), her childhood friend and Thuli’s mother, I wanted to capture the gift of foresight that Doris, Lesego’s mother, didn’t have. Koketso has seen the lonely and isolating place being ambitious has  driven Lesego to and she’s afraid for her equally ambitious child. 

As Africans, especially South Africans, the idea of success is often linked to leaving home and our community to enter mostly white spaces. This physical and mental movement has made us immigrants in our own country. We have to learn the English language and attempt to get to foreign schools to feel accepted and successful. The attempt to enter this elitist, undemocratic and capitalist space has a negative effect. It results in a psychological isolation and loneliness. 

Koketso, as the next door neighbor, wants her daughter to be content with her life. She doesn’t have desires for conventional success. But, because her daughter is growing up in this capitalistic society where people like Lesego are the definition of success, it’s hard for the daughter to view her mother as a success. 

The film flitters across the tension amongst the old, new and the future generation. In a continent like ours, and, as a storyteller, why was it important to capture this tension? 

I was making a commentary on this very individualistic pursuit of success which will often mean isolation from our identity and community. And, it’s important to point out that the current capitalist pursuit isn’t a sustainable system. It didn’t economically work for the older generation nor will it work for the current one. 

My generation is probably the first generation to prove Mandela’s dream and experiment as a nightmare. The capitalist system is falling apart globally. The party has ended and there is a need for new thinking and conversations.  And, in this crumbling period and recession-prone economy, more people will have to return to their community and create sustainable systems. This is what’s going to happen when people come to the ultimate realisation that the capitalist party has ended. And, maybe this is a good thing. 

In a capitalist and individualistic-driven world, how do you  redefine success in African cultures beyond Western capitalist ideals?

It’s hard answering this question. Personally, I want nice things and a quiet home. I have some of these nice things. But, when I think of my success, it’s not the leisure I can afford that I give utmost attention to. It’s the people, friends, family and film community that I have that I see as wealth. But, despite mentioning all these, it still feels empty to imagine what success means within the African context. It feels intangible to describe this utopia.

The film’s scenes mostly revolve around Lesego (Mona Monyane) and Doris (Clementine Mosimane). How was the directing? And what motivated the directorial choice of the confrontation scene? 

It’s hard describing how incredibly good directing them was. When casting for the role, I didn’t want to fall into the commercial notion of casting popular actors. For me, I was trying to match excellence in performance and experience and that was what they gave me. We did a lot of table reads to ensure that there was chemistry between Mona and Clementine. And, interestingly, they both had an explosive connection that I believe will carry on outside of the film’s set. 

For the confrontation scene, I wanted them to really face and listen to each other for the first time. All through the film, there was a cinematic gap that has been created between them and in that sense I wanted to allow them have honest conversation with each other. 

Sabbatical presents an alternative presentation of an aged African woman. Why is this alternative image important in Africa? 

I wanted to show the image of an older woman in  a soft, cute and indulgent love and relationship. Also, I wanted to counter the representation of black women as either lonely, hardened and not sexualized or romanticized. For me, the bigger dream might be to direct a Romcom similar to Kagiso Lediga’s Catching Feelings, but with a focus on two older characters.  Black women are often presented as being hardened and just for service. And, as a storyteller, I wanted to confront this representation. 

What do you want people to leave the film with? 

For me, it’s a bit less about the film but about how I made it. I would like filmmakers to present more interesting representations of Africans and black people with more nuance and subtleness. The stories don’t need to be huge, violent or traumatic. I will want to see more softness and introspection. A lot of South African viewers confessed finding the film refreshing because it didn’t present traumatic images. And, for me, I think that’s important. 

Morally, I think we are better off being together as a community than seeking elitist, white and isolating spaces. Our communities can be flawed and seemingly less ideal. But, it’s accommodating. Importantly, we need to think about the idea of success from a very different lens. As a filmmaker, while acceptance at international film festivals are moral boosters, there is a need to rethink the metrics and measures of success. As a filmmaker, I am keen about Africans on the continent watching my work and sharing their thoughts. I want to be recognized as a filmmaker whose films are seen by Africans on the continent and whose films inspire conversations. 

Also, I made the film to archive and document a generation and the working-class South Africans who are often missing in our films.