Project on Nelson Mandela. Students watched different films linked to racial discrimation (Jim Crow Laws in the USA), Mandela's life, Apartheid (South Africa). You can see the blog: http://cristianaziraldo.altervista.org/?s=Nelson+Mandela

1. “Skin” by Anthony Fabian
Francesca Lovisa
Madalina Pavel

3. Plot
Characters
Science
Setting
Time
Themes
Men
Women
Struggle
Search for freedom
True story

4. Skin is a movie based on a true story set in South Africa during the Apartheid. The film
follows the story of Sandra Laing, daughter of two Afrikaners, who was born with brown skin
and black, kinky hair. Although her parents and brother treat her equally, she faces many
problems when she starts boarding school, where both the faculty and students treat and
look at her as black. Soon the school dismisses her because she is black and call the
government and doctors to support their opinion. Her father is obsessed with having her
classified as white. He is a racist and when, at the age of 15, she starts seeing a black man,
Petrus, he threatens to kill him. She eventually falls in love with him and, desperate for love
and acceptance, decides to run off with him. They then have two children, but the moment
when group areas acts start he blames her for his bad luck. This will lead him to verbally
and physically abusing Sandra, to the point she decides to leave with her children and go to
Johannesburg.
The movie ends where it began, with the 1994 elections. The memory of her parents is still
alive in her, especially what her father used to say: “Never give up”. On her mother’s death
bed she tells her that their memory was all that kept her going during those 20 years of
separation.

5. Sandra Laing
The protagonist
(Sophie Okonedo)
Leon Laing
The brother
(Hannes Brummer)
Abraham Laing
The father
(Sam Neill)
Petrus Zwane
The partner
(Tony Kgoroge)
Sannie Laing
The mother
(Alice Krige)

6. Swaziland
(Mpumalanga) The
name means east or
literally "the place where
the sun rises“.
Johannesburg

7.  1965, at the age of 10 Sandra is expelled from boarding
school.
 1972, at the age of 17 she elopes with Petrus to
Swaziland.
 1994, at the age of 39, she and her mother reunite after
20 years. It is also the year of the end of Apartheid,
with the first multi-racial democratic election.

8. They are shown as two-faced figures: they don’t display
true love to Sandra:
 Her brother loves and cares about her at first, but
when she decides to leave the family he no longer
considers her his sister;
 Her lover loves as her as long as things go well, the
moment things start changing he blames her for
everything;
 Her father loves her only when she considers herself
“white”.

9. They are constant figures but they’re oppressed by men:
 As a child Sandra must not disobey the rules given by
adults, especially by her strict father;
 As a teenager she cannot choose who to love and when
she starts seeing a black man her dad almost kills him;
 As a mother she tries to do everything for the sake of
her children so she decides to leave her abusing
husband;
 Her mother mantains her love and support for Sandra,
but because of the society of the time she must do as
her husband says.

10. The movie presents the struggle from the point of view of both white and black people.
Even if Sandra’s parents love her and fight against the prejudice people and institutions have
of their daughter, when she decides to be in a relationship with a black man they’re full of
prejudices and her father doesn’t want to see her again.
On the other hand Petrus blames her for every bad thing that happens to them, because of
her “whiteness”.

11. The film focusses on the role of women, and their search
for freedom. Not just Sandra’s freedom, as a black
woman against society, but even Sannie’s (Sandra’s
mum) freedom, against her husband Abraham.
For Sandra freedom is when she will finally find a place
where she is not judged for her skin color (and she will
find this when she goes to Swaziland).
For Sannie freedom is when she will be independent of
her husband’s decisions (she will find this after
Abraham’s death).

12. Atavism is the tendency to revert to an ancestral type. It
is a “genetic throwback”, where characteristics that
disappeared generations before reapper. This could
happen because genes from previously existing
phenotypical features (phenotypes are physical or
biochemical characteristics of an organism) are
preserved in the DNA.

13. The movie is based on the real story of Sandra Laing,
who helped in the making of the film.
The movie ends with anecdotes about her life after 1994
or that weren’t shown during the film. She now has
seven grandchildren, her mother died in 2001, Petrus
died in a drunken brawl in 1987, her brothers still refuse
to reunite with her.