“A lot of my observations then about right-wing, lower middle-class families went into the story of Malunde,” says the 38-year-old Sycholt, who was born in Pretoria, studied philosophy, literature and African Studies at university, was active in the anti-apartheid movement and served a stint as a journalist.

In 1990, however, Sycholt was accepted by the HFF, Munich’s prestigious film school, where she studied for four years. In that time, she made four films. These consisted of two experimental shorts, followed by two documentaries: The Changing of the Seasons and Mbube, about the internationally renowned a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Work on what would become Malunde started in June 1998, immediately after Sycholt graduated from the HFF. “I had written a long treatment and, before I started work on the screenplay, I went back home for about three or four months,” she says. “I spent a lot of that time in the street-kid shelters in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, helping out where needed. But essentially I just wanted to be there. I had gone to observe the kids and was there long enough if they wanted to speak to me.

“I waited for them to approach me. Eventually, I ended up transporting them to the hospital or their soccer games and got some insight into their lives. It was a truly moving experience and I gained vast respect for these young people who have to deal with hardships and realities that many adults never have to face.”

The story of Malunde brings together both strands of Sycholt’s research, focusing simultaneously on an ex-soldier called Kobus (top South African actor Ian Roberts) and a street kid called Wonderboy (newcomer Kagiso Mtetwa). Both are, in different ways, victims of the changes that have taken place in South Africa since the ending of apartheid. Kobus can’t help yearning for the good old days when, as a medal-winning soldier, he counted for something in a world that made sense to him. Wonderboy is engaged in a more basic struggle for survival, surrounded as he is by the prostitution rackets and crack dealers of Johannesburg.

The two meet one day when Wonderboy cleans the windscreen of Kobus’ pick-up. Then, through a bizarre combination of circumstances, they end up together on the road to Cape Town. Their alliance is always precarious: at one stage, it falls apart altogether as Kobus, trying to reconcile with his estranged daughter, pretends not to know Wonderboy. But eventually, like the two communities in South Africa confronting one another in Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they learn to overcome the past and move towards a better future.

Malunde all but swept the board at the recent Avanti Awards in South Africa, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (shared by Roberts and Mtetwa), Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actor. It receives its international premiere at this month’s (September) Toronto Film Festival. And the producers are doing their bit by donating one rand (¢12) for every ticket sold to Mandela’s Street Children Fund. But there were times when Sycholt despaired of ever getting the film made.

“In South Africa,” she says, “what is left of the film industry is very scared to touch anything which deals with a South African story with purely South African actors. They are scared that the international market will not be interested in such a story.”