This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

Carmel International Competition

"Mesmerising"

Screen Daily
  • Archive - Festival 36
  • Director: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
  • Lesotho, South Africa, Italy 2019
  • 119 minutes
  • Sesotho
  • Subtitles in Hebrew

In a small village nestled amongst the mountains of land-locked Lesotho, an 80-year-old widow named Mantoa awaits the return of her son, a migrant worker laboring in a South African coal mine. It is Christmas and he is due home but instead there is sad news: her son has died in a mining accident. Distraught by his untimely death, Mantoa begins making arrangements for her own burial. But then fresh news arrives.

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection creates an ode to a way of life perhaps soon to disappear in the name of progress. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, the film presents a vivid and ethereal meditation on life, death, and the power of the human spirit.

Filmography: For Those Whose God Is Dead (2013).


  • Director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
  • Production Cait Pansegrouw, Elias Ribiero
  • Script Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
  • Cinematography Pierre de Villiers
  • Editing Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
  • Festivals Venice, Sundance (Special Jury Award), Rotterdam, Portland (Jury Prize), Taipei (Grand Prize)
  • Source Memento Films, Paris
  • Music Yu Miyashita
  • Actors Mary Twala Mhlongo, Jerry Mofokeng Wa Makhetha, Makhaola Ndebele