# Yesterday (2004 film)
**Yesterday** is a 2004 South African drama film written and directed by Darrell James Roodt, shot in the [Zulu language](https://www.edgepedia.org/zulu-language), about a rural mother diagnosed with AIDS who resolves to live long enough to see her daughter start school. It was the first international feature film made in Zulu and became South Africa's first Academy Award nominee, receiving a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 2005 ceremony.[1](https://biffes.org/frontend/images/widget/2nd%20BIFFes%202008_compressed.pdf) • [2](https://ket.org/program/yesterday/) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419279/awards/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writer | Darrell James Roodt[1](https://biffes.org/frontend/images/widget/2nd%20BIFFes%202008_compressed.pdf) |
| Language and length | Zulu, with English subtitles; 96 minutes (some listings give 91 or 93 minutes)[1](https://biffes.org/frontend/images/widget/2nd%20BIFFes%202008_compressed.pdf) • [4](https://www.screendaily.com/yesterday/4020371.article) |
| Lead cast | Leleti Khumalo as Yesterday; Lihle Mvelase as Beauty; Kenneth Kambule as John Khumalo; Harriet Lehabe as the teacher; Camilla Walker as the clinic doctor[5](https://www.fandango.com/yesterday-2004-88245/movie-overview) |
| Producers | Anant Singh and Helena Spring, for Videovision Entertainment[1](https://biffes.org/frontend/images/widget/2nd%20BIFFes%202008_compressed.pdf) |
| Budget | R4 million, with R1.5 million from M-Net's eight-movie project[6](https://iol.co.za/entertainment/celebrity-news/2004-08-22-beauty-in-the-eye-of-a-box-office-beholder/) • [7](https://mg.co.za/friday/2004-08-27-brutality-of-life/) |
| Oscar nomination | Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, 2005 ceremony, as South Africa's official entry[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419279/awards/) |
| Other honors | Peabody Award (2005); EIUC Award at the 2004 Venice Film Festival; Emmy nomination for Outstanding Made for Television Movie (2006)[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419279/awards/) • [8](https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/yesterday/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Yesterday ([Leleti Khumalo](https://www.edgepedia.org/leleti-khumalo)) lives in Rooihoek, a small village in Zululand, with her seven-year-old daughter Beauty (Lihle Mvelase). Her husband John (Kenneth Kambule) works as a miner in [Johannesburg](https://www.edgepedia.org/johannesburg) and is away for long stretches, so she manages the household largely alone.[9](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592) After a persistent cough, she walks to the clinic in the nearby village of Kromdraai; it takes three attempts before she is seen by the doctor (Camilla Walker), a white woman who speaks Zulu, and she learns she is HIV positive.[9](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592) • [10](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2019.1658805)
She travels to Johannesburg to tell her husband, who reacts with rage and beats her; he later returns home ill, admits he did not want to believe her, and dies shortly after Yesterday builds a separate shack where she can care for him away from the village.[9](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592) Facing stigma from neighbors and the local sangoma (traditional healer), who blames her illness on suppressed anger, Yesterday fixes on a single goal: to stay alive until Beauty's first day of school. The film ends with Beauty walking to class in her new uniform as Yesterday watches and then walks away down a dusty path.[9](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592) • [2](https://ket.org/program/yesterday/)
## Production
Roodt initially wrote the script in English and had it translated into Zulu.[7](https://mg.co.za/friday/2004-08-27-brutality-of-life/) The production was led by Anant Singh's Videovision Entertainment, backed by [M-Net](https://www.edgepedia.org/m-net), the National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and was made in association with [HBO Films](https://www.edgepedia.org/hbo-films); Roodt said the backing left him free to make the film he wanted despite the competing agendas that surround the subject of HIV/AIDS.[7](https://mg.co.za/friday/2004-08-27-brutality-of-life/) • [8](https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/yesterday/) The Mandela Foundation's support was intended to show the reality of a country overwhelmed by HIV infection and short of resources.[9](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592)
The film premiered in the Orizzonti sidebar at the 2004 [Venice Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/venice-film-festival), where it won the EIUC human rights award, and then screened at the [Toronto International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/toronto-international-film-festival).[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419279/awards/) • [1](https://biffes.org/frontend/images/widget/2nd%20BIFFes%202008_compressed.pdf) • [4](https://www.screendaily.com/yesterday/4020371.article) It was selected as South Africa's official entry for the [77th Academy Awards](https://www.edgepedia.org/77th-academy-awards), where it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, the country's first nomination in the category.[11](https://www.bizcommunity.com/PDF/PDF.aspx?c=97&ci=4623&ct=1&l=196) • [12](https://cdn.festival-cannes.com/media/uploads/2023/05/159095.pdf) It later received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, a 2006 Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, and a 2005 Peabody Award, which cited its "compassionate and hopeful exploration of personal courage in the struggle against the AIDS pandemic."[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419279/awards/) • [8](https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/yesterday/)
## Themes and reception
The film is set ten years after the end of apartheid and depicts the conditions shaping the epidemic in rural [KwaZulu-Natal](https://www.edgepedia.org/kwazulu-natal): migrant labor that separates husbands from wives, poverty, the difficulty of reaching medical care, and the stigma attached to the disease. Its medical detail was analyzed in the journal *Journal of Medicine and Movies*, which noted that in South Africa women were disproportionately infected and that stigma led many people to avoid even mentioning AIDS.[9](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592) Scholars have read the film as a gendered narrative of the epidemic, one filled with silences, fear of disclosure, and the blaming of women as scapegoats for HIV.[13](https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/18939/)
**Reception at home and abroad diverged.** South African newspapers praised the film; the *Daily News* called it "a triumph for local film-making that should be seen by all South Africans," and the *Sunday Tribune Magazine* called it the best South African feature film.[14](https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/11290/thesis_hum_2010_treffry_goatly_a.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1%26isAllowed%3Dy) Yet it was not a box office hit in South Africa. One academic account attributes this to its origins: written in English by a white director and aimed at independent cinemas abroad, where it was well received, it did not resonate with many of the citizens whose language and lives it depicted.[15](https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstreams/c3ffb8f9-1195-4ac2-8f2f-48ac56a81ec2/download) The Forum for Traditional Healers of South Africa attacked the film for suggesting that traditional healers are uninformed about the causes and symptoms of HIV/AIDS, and critics faulted its dialogue as simplistic.[14](https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/11290/thesis_hum_2010_treffry_goatly_a.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1%26isAllowed%3Dy)
The film has had a practical afterlife in public health. It has been used in HIV awareness campaigns, shown in rural areas to prompt discussion of HIV/AIDS, and one commentator predicted its story could become the dominant cinematic narrative of the South African epidemic.[10](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2019.1658805) • [16](https://storage.googleapis.com/rua-ucp/files/books/234/16002fa7-2a6b-4da8-95eb-39e4fdf6c5b4.pdf) • [17](https://hivan.org.za/edit_essays/October%202004.asp) Producer Anant Singh argued that a personal story was the most effective way to engage a broad South African audience on an issue many had come to see as old news.[18](https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2004/08/30/impact-aids-women-showcased-new-movie)
## Note on other films of the same name
The title Yesterday also belongs to an unrelated 2019 romantic comedy directed by [Danny Boyle](https://www.edgepedia.org/danny-boyle) and written by [Richard Curtis](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-curtis), about a musician who discovers no one else remembers the Beatles.[19](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/yesterday_2019)
## References
1. [Yesterday, 2nd Bangalore International Film Festival catalog](https://biffes.org/frontend/images/widget/2nd%20BIFFes%202008_compressed.pdf)
2. [Yesterday, KET program page](https://ket.org/program/yesterday/)
3. [Yesterday (2004) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419279/awards/)
4. [Yesterday review, Screen Daily (Dan Fainaru, 2004)](https://www.screendaily.com/yesterday/4020371.article)
5. [Yesterday (2004), Fandango](https://www.fandango.com/yesterday-2004-88245/movie-overview)
6. ['Beauty' in the eye of a box-office beholder](https://iol.co.za/entertainment/celebrity-news/2004-08-22-beauty-in-the-eye-of-a-box-office-beholder/)
7. [Brutality of life, Mail & Guardian (27 August 2004)](https://mg.co.za/friday/2004-08-27-brutality-of-life/)
8. [Yesterday, The Peabody Awards](https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/yesterday/)
9. [Olaia Cores Calvo, "Yesterday (2004)", Journal of Medicine and Movies 5(4), 2009](https://revistas.usal.es/cinco/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/download/13821/14265/48592)
10. ["Your husbands are bringing it to you": South African rural women and HIV in Darrell Roodt's Yesterday (2004), Culture, Health & Sexuality](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2019.1658805)
11. ["Yesterday" heads for the Oscars, Bizcommunity](https://www.bizcommunity.com/PDF/PDF.aspx?c=97&ci=4623&ct=1&l=196)
12. [Darrell James Roodt biography, Festival de Cannes](https://cdn.festival-cannes.com/media/uploads/2023/05/159095.pdf)
13. [Danielle Tran, "Visible and invisible trauma: locating AIDS within a gendered framework in Darrell James Roodt's Yesterday", Safundi 17(4), 2016](https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/18939/)
14. [Treffry-Goatly, The Representation and Mediation of National Identity in the Production of Post-Apartheid South African Cinema, UCT thesis, 2010](https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/11290/thesis_hum_2010_treffry_goatly_a.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1%26isAllowed%3Dy)
15. [Wits University thesis on South African film and cultural identity](https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstreams/c3ffb8f9-1195-4ac2-8f2f-48ac56a81ec2/download)
16. [Pandemic Genres: Imagining Politics in a Time of AIDS, Luminos/UC Press](https://storage.googleapis.com/rua-ucp/files/books/234/16002fa7-2a6b-4da8-95eb-39e4fdf6c5b4.pdf)
17. [HIVAN Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking essay, October 2004](https://hivan.org.za/edit_essays/October%202004.asp)
18. [Impact of AIDS on women showcased in new movie, IRIN/The New Humanitarian, 30 August 2004](https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2004/08/30/impact-aids-women-showcased-new-movie)
19. [Yesterday (2019), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/yesterday_2019)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Biographical and historical drama films 2000s › Released 2000 to 2005*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license