Taki is a photographer in his mid-thirties who has sworn off serious relationships for the time being. Every time he meets a woman, he makes his intentions abundantly clear and does not sell dreams. The problem with his superficially based interactions, is that most of the women he gets with eventually want something deeper, which he responds to by moving on to someone else.
As these stories normally go, he ends up meeting someone who shifts his world. Her name is Tumi, and she is his counterpart. She agrees to the no-strings-attached relationship and never gives him grief about it. Not because they don’t have a connection, but because she is in an open-relationship and already has someone she goes home to, leaving Taki to reconsider what he thought he wanted.
Mahlatsi and Bheka have been together for over 12 years. They’ve tried to get married twice already, but due to sudden unforeseen events, they have had to postpone the wedding both times. We meet them as they make their third attempt to tie the knot and prepare for their wedding that is merely weeks away.
Mahlatsi has always wanted to get married, and she is feeling the pressure that society is placing on her.
Their relationship began as a glorious celebration, but over time it has deteriorated. She feels that money has changed Bheka, and he no longer treats her in a way that a partner should. A part of her feels that there is a reason why the wedding has never happened, but she fears that it might be too late for her to leave and start over, especially once she discovers that she is pregnant with his child.
Any environment, be it rural or urban, tends to have an impact on the culture of its citizens. Cape Town with its oceans, mountains, and beautiful natural surroundings, has a reputation for being laid back. New York with its high rises, small apartments, and condensed population, has built a reputation of citizens who are high strung, always in a hurry and tend to be impatient with each other and visitors to the city.
The question this film asks is, how has Johannesburg’s character influenced the behaviour of its citizens? Jo’burg is the largest mega city in the world that is not connected to a body of water (landlocked) and is popularly known as ‘The City of Gold’. Historically, people tend to settle around bodies of water, because in essence ‘water is life’. Why have ‘Jo’burgers’ chosen to settle where there is no life? Did we come here only to seek gold; in whatever form we can source it? Are we seeking the unnatural over the natural? And does the fact that Jo’burg is the world’s largest man-made urban forest, mean that there are those amongst us who are trying to replace our materialistic desires with those that are more natural?
