The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) concluded its 41st festival run with the closing night film “Laundry (Uhlanjululo),” which celebrated its U.S. premiere at the festival.
Writer-director-producer Zamo Mkhwanazi was on hand to introduce the film, starring Ntobeko Sishi and Tracy September.
Set in Johannesburg in 1968, “Laundry (Uhlanjululo)” follows teenage Khuthala (Sishi), who hates his father’s laundry business and dreams of becoming a musician. As the apartheid government intensifies pressure on Black-owned businesses, Khuthala is forced to confront a stark choice between his personal ambitions and fighting the injustice that threatens his family’s only means of subsistence—the enterprise that also holds them together. When his father, Enoch (Shibe), is arrested, the conflict sharpens into a battle for survival and dignity.
The film is characterized as a deeply felt, intimate portrait of life under apartheid, exploring systemic oppression, personal aspiration, and the struggle to maintain humanity and hope amid a racist regime. Performances anchor the story’s emotional weight while highlighting the daily toll of living under constant intimidation in 1960s South Africa.
Earlier on Saturday, SBIFF gathered Academy Award–nominated writers for an all-male panel including Clint Bentley (Train Dreams), Ronald Bronstein (Marty Supreme), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident), Will Tracy (Bugonia), and Eskil Vogt (Sentimental Value) for a wide-ranging conversation on craft, inspiration, and process.
Reflecting on beginnings and motivations, Vogt said, “it felt impossible for me to make a film, but then I realized I could write a film,” while Bronstein noted he aims to “write work that feels like it is unspooling with the projector.”
Discussing daily practice and sources of material, Bentley said he “tries to write every day… treating it as a craft,” and Panahi explained that his writing grows from “the real experiences of myself or my friends” rooted in his life in Iran.
Turning to this year’s projects, Tracy shared, “I liked the idea of making a modern conspiracy theory movie… so I wanted to examine it from a perspective of empathy,” and del Toro observed, “You are the monster, and you are the creator. You are every character on screen.”
With “Laundry (Uhlanjululo)” closing the festival on a note of urgency and compassion, SBIFF’s 41st edition capped a week of global storytelling and thoughtful dialogue about the art and responsibility of cinema.
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