Subtly played by leads Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth, but this tale set in apartheid South Africa is too smooth and decorous for its own good. Ray is the docile mother in an arranged marriage to a hard-line husband; Sheth the free spirit singleton running an unsegregated restaurant and wearing trousers (and not looking 1952 at all).

Like Brick Lane – and Deepa Mehta's sparkier Fire – it's about sexual and spiritual awakening in a repressive society, as the two are mutually attracted. There's a subplot of Sheth's co-worker prevented from a love life by the pernicious rules of the time, but all those syrupy strings often drag it down to the level of an unchallenging afternoon women's TV pic.

Ray and Sheth are also the stars of I Can't Think Straight, by the same director, novelist Shamim Sarif.

The two were made back-to-back and are released simultaneously – and both are "written, directed, financed and produced entirely by women".