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Mixed Feelings
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Mixed Feelings
IDFA 1991

Mixed Feelings

Karin Junger
Netherlands
1991
57 min
Festival history

In 1988 Annette Heunis caused a commotion in the South African mining town of Odendaalrus, located in the ultra-conservative Orange Free State. The twenty-year-old white girl left through the window of her parents house to move in with the family of her black lover Jerry Tsie in the Kutlanong township.
Three years later Dutch film-maker Karin Junger journeys through South Africa with her husband Walther and their son Winston. Karin is white, Winston brown and Walther black. They went in search of 'loving heroes'.
Karin Junger: "It isn't difficult for us to live together in Holland. Only very occasionally does someone forget that one is expected to be unprejudiced here. The least clever then asks 'Is he a bit intelligent?' The most uninhibited confide 'Idiot, I'd never dream of marrying a black. They smell different and those fat lips...' Many other black & white couples, for instance in South Africa, pay a high price to live together.
The publicity has made Karin and Walther curious and in South Africa, they go in search of Annette and Jerry. In Odendaalsrus and the neighbouring black township Kutlanong they find evidence of the famous love affair. The whites talk of an intolerable drama. The inhabitants of Kutlanong regard Annette and Jerry as heroes.
After a journey to places, people and events from Annette and Jerry's past, in which Karin and Walther are also themselves confronted with the reactions of white and black, the four eventually meet up in the bantustan Bophuthatswana, where Annette and Jerry have sought refuge.
During the search, the curiosity has grown even greater and the relationship between Jerry and Annette more and more incredible. What happens to the two lovers when the door shuts at night? How uninhibited are they towards each other, after separate educations with so many prejudices? What is the effect of the pressure from without - in this case also the publicity - on their private life?

Credits
Director
Production
    Jura Filmprodukties
    Jura Filmprodukties
World Sales
    Cor Koppies Filmverhuur BV
    Cor Koppies Filmverhuur BV