THE HEART OF REDNESS (2008)

Camugu, a South African native son who fled his homeland during apartheid and returned only to be disillusioned by job difficulties in Johannesburg, seeks solace in a coastal village on the Eastern Cape. But there he finds he has leapt from the proverbial frying pan into a blazing fire: As he dallies with two very different women, the village contemplates transforming itself into a playground for tourists (shopping mall! tennis courts! timeshares! water park!). Jumping handily between past and present, Mda deftly renders the tensions between maintaining an indigenous culture and altering it in the name of progress.