Valley of a Thousand Hills

The movie "The Valley of a Thousand Hills" is a beautiful drama set in South Africa and is co-written and directed by Bonie Sithebe. It follows the journey of two young women from a conservative village who are faced with the dilemma of choosing between adhering to their family's wishes or risking everything for the sake of true love.

The film centers on the intolerance of free love in the name of tradition, family, and religion in a very conservative Zulu village that can easily extrapolate to any region of the world. The movie explores LGBTQ+ prejudice in a simple and direct way and makes us question the number of unhappy and hurtful marriages, simply because they feel pressured to follow society's rules. It's regrettable that some individuals decide to live a life of unhappiness and discontentment simply because they love someone of the same gender.

It is a beautiful movie in terms of the scenery, the couple, and the tough journey of being queer and learning to be true to that through all the obstacles (including culture and family). Fair warning that the last five minutes ruins the happy ending. Also, I will add a sexual assault trigger warning (especially once during the movie and again in the last five minutes). I'll also include a content warning about homophobia, since that is a significant theme in the movie (and misogyny is in there as well). This includes internalized homophobia as the two women work through that in this movie in different ways.

This film was well written and captured my attention from beginning to end! Seeing this perspective from a different cultures lens was captivating, informative and did not disappoint.

I must admit that I have NEVER watched a film where I had to read the caption in its entirety so this was a first and well worth it. I could not go to sleep until it ended and I like the fact that it wasn't your typical ending to a story that we see so often in mostly all movies.

I applaud the writers, actresses, production, actors and everyone involved.

THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS STORY TO THE BIG SCREEN! AMAZING.