Barakat is a charmingly captured story about a Cape Muslim family. It is directed by multi-award winning Amy Jeptha, who says the story is personal because she shares Islam ancestry and it is the culture she grew up in. The movie cleverly captures the community and filmed in the Cape Flats, it brings in plenty of realism.
WATCH: Director Amy Jeptha and producer Ephraim Gordon discuss their inspirations behind the movie.
We’re introduced to a Cape Muslim family, the Davids, celebrating life, loss, their dynamic culture, and family. The movie’s stellar cast includes comedian Joey Rasdien, Mortimer Williams, Keeno-Lee Hector and Danny Ross playing the roles of the four sons with Vinette Ebrahim (best known for her role as Charmaine on 7de Laan) taking on the lead role as Aisha Davids. It also stars Bonnie Mbuli, Quanita Adams, and Leslie Fong.
It is the first movie with an Afrikaaps dialogue. Afrikaaps is a local dialect spoken in the Cape, which is said to be a mixture of African (Khoi and San), South-East Asian, Dutch, Portuguese, and English with its origins dating back to the 1500s.
Learn some Afrikaaps lingo here:
The story centres around matriarch Aisha, who after the death of her husband, takes a bold step and accepts a marriage proposal from a Christian man.
In the Islamic tradition, there is usually a period of mourning before a widow can remarry. And as we all know, sometimes marrying outside of one’s religion can become taboo. Certain that her sons won’t be supportive of her decision, since they’re still grieving their father, Aisha decides to share the news with them over Eid-al-Fitr. It is a celebration after a month-long period of fasting called Ramadan. It brings families together as they celebrate their blessings around a fine feast.
Aisha decides to use barakat to bring her sons in harmony after breaking the news about her new proposal. The word barakat is derived from the Arabic barakah, meaning blessings. A barakat is also a paper bag filled with goodies such as cakes, sweets and fruits and is used as a gift exchanged between family and friends to show love and appreciation. But what if it can also be a person? Aisha hopes her family sees the blessings through a barakat amid the family problems, unhealed wounds, and the loss of their father. And of course, there is that one friend, Fadielah, played by the charismatic June van Merch who injects humour in the most inappropriate of ways to delicately balance out the entire film.
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The movie strongly portrays the rich, diverse and bold culture of the Cape Muslim community and teaches every one of us the value of family.
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