Yesterday

The film opens by illustrating the harsh, everyday realities of rural post-apartheid South Africa. Yesterday is a fiercely loving, illiterate mother who spends her days doing strenuous chores and caring for her daughter, Beauty. Her husband, John, works far away in the gold mines of Johannesburg and only sends money occasionally. Yesterday develops a persistent, debilitating cough, but the local clinic is miles away. After walking for hours only to be turned away due to an overcapacity crowd, she eventually gets seen by a sympathetic doctor on a subsequent attempt. The doctor delivers a devastating diagnosis: Yesterday is HIV-positive. Yesterday centers all of her remaining life force on a single milestone. She wants to see Beauty wear her uniform, pack her bag, and walk through the gates of the local school—a future of literacy and opportunity that Yesterday herself was denied. The film reaches a poignant, bittersweet climax as Yesterday watches her daughter start school, fulfilling her final promise before her body gives way to the illness.