[1] In 1950s Sophiatown, South Africa, a man forces his wife to treat her lover's suit as if it were a person, with tragic consequences.

Philemon, a middle-class lawyer awakens his sleeping wife Matilda, whom he calls Tilly, in their bedroom, with breakfast in bed.

The married couple lives in Sophiatown, a township of Johannesburg, in the early 1950s, shortly before the apartheid regime forcibly removed non-whites from the area to make way for white resettlement under the Group Areas Act and the Natives Resettlement Act, 1954.

Philemon walks down a busy street as a caption appears on screen saying: Sophiatown, Johannesburg, 1955.

On the bus, Mr. Maphikela reluctantly informs Philemon that Matilda has been visited by a young man every morning for the last three months.

In a montage of shots, Matilda pours two glasses of whiskey, flirts and dances with a shirtless young man as Spokes Mashiyane's "Zoo Lake Jive" plays from a gramophone.

In the same montage, Philemon marches through the streets of Sophiatown, loosening his tie aggressively and bumping into other pedestrians.

The montage ends as Matilda kisses the young man and Philemon reaches the front door of his house.

He opens the door, shuts it behind him, puts his briefcase down on the floor, then inhales deeply, gathering himself.

He pretends as if he has not noticed the lovers in bed, and tells Matilda that he was nearly at work when he realised that he had left his pass at home so he returned to fetch it.

While Philemon phones his boss, Matilda dresses quickly in her nightgown and waits anxiously on the bed.

While Spokes Mashiyane's "Kwela Zulu" plays, the shebeen queen removes alcohol (the sale of which was prohibited to blacks) from below a trap-door in a side-room then brings a bottle to Philemon as he smokes.

They wash their plates and cutlery at the kitchen sink in silence, the suit hanging on the wall beside Matilda.

When Matilda attempts to sit beside him, he tells her to go put the fellow to rest, referring to the suit which she is carrying.

Matilda sings "Amazing Grace" with a choir of wives at the cultural club of the Anglican Mission.

On her way home, carrying the suit, she walks past a political rally where the speaker calls the crowd to resist the forced removals by insisting that they will not move.

As a turkey cooks in the oven, Matilda dances with the suit to Spokes Mashiyane's "Zoo Lake Jive".

Finally, Philemon storms into the room and Matilda bumps into him with a fright as the music stops suddenly.

Matilda is about to follow them out of the house when Philemon steps in front of her and commands her to put the suit to bed.

While Philemon dances with the friends at the smoky shebeen to the tune of Spokes Mashiyane's "Phatha Phatha", we return to the prologue in which a person dresses: a hand removes a suit from a cupboard, the same hand polishes shoes, brushes trousers, fastens cufflinks, buttons up a jacket.

Finally, we realise that the person now fully dressed in the suit is in fact Matilda, though we do not see her face, and the tie is attached to the rafters of the bedroom.

Back at the shebeen, Philemon is seated, contemplating his punishment of Matilda, as the music and sounds fade to a muffle.

"Strange Fruit" was popular in Sophiatown at the time due to the gradual entrenchment of apartheid laws.

Philemon enters the bedroom and falls to his knees below Matilda's hanging feet as he shouts her name repeatedly.

The film was shot in some of the few buildings that survived the apartheid regime's forced removals[6] of non-whites from the area to make way for white resettlement.

The film was also selected by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma (France's national academy of cinema which gives France's highest honour for film, the César Award) for its prestigious "Les Nuits en Or" (Golden Nights) event[19] which saw the film screened in nine European capitals (Paris, Rome, Athens, Madrid, Stockholm, Lisbon, Vienna, Brussels and Luxembourg), 24 cities and towns across France and a gala evening hosted by UNESCO in Paris and attended by France's leading actors and film-makers.