As South Africa celebrates a decade of democracy, this film follows the fortunes of two of the country's promising young footballers. Both possess their share of talent but Seth is white, and from a wealthy background, while Thuso is black and sleeps on his granny's kitchen floor. What has a free South Africa come to mean for the two young sportsmen?
Today's Choices: Documentary: Football and Freedom: This World 9.00pm BBC2
Before you assume that this is another football documentary and look for something else to watch, hold your horses. What we have here is a well-observed and at times heart-rending portrait of life in South Africa. The story happens to be told via the experiences of two talented young footballers, one white and one black, but in truth the film's no more about sport than The Great Escape is a film about gymnastics.
Our heroes are Seth, a white, middle-class teenager with a pushy dad and a gift for goalscoring; and midfielder Thuso, who lives in Soweto, sleeping on his grandmother's kitchen floor, a space he shares with his mother and two sisters.
We first meet the boys in 1999, aged 13, as they struggle to be picked out by scouts from dozens of similar hopefuls. Dutch club Ajax spot Seth, while Thuso comes to the attention of Leeds United. But both their lives are dominated by the gun crime that is a fact of daily life: 'Thuso's dad has been murdered by car-jackers before the film starts; then in the course of the film his mother and Seth's father are both nearly killed by armed criminals.
In the face of all this, Thuso and his mother Susan's stoic cheerfulness brings a lump to your throat, particularly when, as they face eviction from their tiny home, Thuso tells her not to worry. By contrast, the conversation between Seth and his dad about who will took after Seth's money when he goes professional is painfully loveless, and the sneering way Seth talks about his black team-mates is depressing. The scene where they respond by singing apartheid-era anti-white songs says a great deal about the "new" South Africa. (David Butcher)
