At the centre of this plain, extremely touching film is a heart-rending performance from Khomotso Manyaka as Chandra, a 12-year-old girl holding her family together in a South African township at a time when poverty, Aids and fading national hopes are tearing communities apart. Without anything smug, ingratiating or sentimental about her, Chandra sets a convincing and necessary example to the stumbling adults around her, and the scenes with her sick mother, her siblings, her prejudiced neighbours and especially a girl her own age driven into prostitution are handled with insight and restraint.