The Wound

In the Eastern Cape of South Africa, a mountain camp closed to women takes in young Xhosa men for the annual initiation into manhood, their bodies painted in white ochre as they heal. Xolani (Nakhane), a lonely factory worker, takes time off to care for the initiates, among them Kwanda, a defiant boy from Johannesburg who soon learns Xolani's secret. John Trengove sets a tradition built on silence and aggression against a love that has no place in it.