There is some difficulty when it comes to writing about the films at Rendezvous with Madness for, well, reasons. Sometimes I ask ‘what does this have to do with neurodivergence’ but the answer to that is everything. This is especially true with 1001 Days, a documentary about Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg in South Africa. It’s a vibrant community. Things seem fine, especially as it captures Alexandra’s Christian community, but it does have its societal problems. The Ububele home visiting programme can’t fix all of those problems, especially ones that the mothers are facing.

Thandiwe Khumalo checks in on mothers like Cynthia, a victim of sex trafficking and abuse, lacking support she needs. One of her other cases is Nthabiseng, a mother whose health problems come and go, with dire effects. Another social worker is Khosi Sithole, who reads testaments from their cases about the heavy mental toll of their circumstances. Chloe White and Zikethiwe Ngcobo’s 1001 Days uses, of course, interviews in a context where these interviews happen anyway. But there’s something unintrusive about the blocking of these interviews, giving viewers an intimate portrait of these women.

For instance, Cynthia has her back mostly to the camera and the camera lets her sit however she wants to. That positioning, if anything, helps reinforce the emotional impact of the story that Thandiwe may already know. The documentary sensitively handles the subjects I wrote about above, as well as the mental toll that those things inflict. But it’s also not a total downer, as it shows the social workers talking mundane subjects to their mothers. Breastfeeding is one of those topics, as two of Thandiwe’s mothers are phasing breastfeeding out for their toddlers. Children, mothers, and social workers have their different burdens that they try to overcome one day at a time.