A World Apart is a 1988 anti-apartheid drama film directed by Chris Menges, and starring Barbara Hershey, David Suchet, Jeroen Krabbé, Paul Freeman, Tim Roth and Jodhi May.

[6] Set in Johannesburg in 1963, the film examines the abrupt ending of 13-year-old Molly's blithe childhood when her father, a member of the South African Communist Party, flees into exile.

The film title references both the gap between the mother and her teenage girl, who fails to grasp why their family is so fixated with events beyond their comfortable white suburb, and another separating this world from that of South Africa's poverty-stricken black townships.

Essentially, the film is a tribute to Ruth First by her daughter and concludes in a moment of epiphany as Molly comes to terms with her mother's activism and understands that she too must play a part in the struggle against racial injustice.

[1] It went on to gross $8 million worldwide, including $2,326,800 in the United States and Canada[9] and £800,000 at the UK box office.