Long Night's Journey Into Day

After the policy of apartheid was abolished in South Africa, ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC)’ were established. In this way, perpetrators of crimes had the opportunity to show remorse, publicly and in the presence of TV cameras, and the truth about countless unsolved crimes could be revealed. Offenders and victims had to be able to look each other in the eye and jointly cope with the past. The advocates of these commissions, Bishop Desmond Tutu being one of them, saw them as an effective tool. Others talk about Kafkaesque situations. Murdered people’s relatives were confronted by the killers of their kin. LONG NIGHT’S JOURNEY INTO DAY follows people involved in four such cases. Among them, the parents of an 18-year-old white American student, who sympathised with the anti-apartheid movement, but was killed by four black youngsters. Her forgiving parents pay a visit to the mother of one of the assassins.