Lemohang Mosese, a Sundance-winning filmmaker, makes his return to the Berlin Film Festival with his third feature, Ancestral Visions of the Future, set to premiere on February 20 in the Berlinale Special section. The film, deeply personal and introspective, examines themes of displacement and identity through a blend of reality and reconstruction. By weaving together the fragmented experiences of a young boy, a market woman, and a puppeteer, Mosese revisits his childhood in Lesotho and the lasting impact of his exile in Berlin.
This latest project marks Mosese’s continued exploration of his homeland, following Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You, which screened in the Berlinale Forum in 2019, and This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, which won a special jury prize at Sundance in 2020. Despite his deep connection to Lesotho, Mosese admits he was hesitant to return to the country for Ancestral Visions of the Future. The emotional weight of his past made revisiting it a daunting challenge. “It was not a chapter that I really wanted to open again,” he told Variety.
However, Mosese ultimately found himself unable to move forward without confronting the past. The pain of exile remained unresolved, and he described his creative process as tapping into “a very raw and primal and rage-y space.” This journey led him back to a pivotal moment in his life: his family’s eviction and forced relocation to the outskirts of Hlotse. That displacement left an indelible mark, fueling his fears that the idea of returning was merely an illusion—a means of coping with the alienation he experienced in Europe.
Reconnecting with his roots proved to be a complex and uneasy experience. He struggled with what he called a “patchwork of borrowed faces, of borrowed identities,” yet in stripping away those layers, he discovered a new understanding of himself—a “king of many faces.” Mosese’s work remains a powerful critique of the historical and ongoing exploitation of Africa by colonial powers, and his latest film extends this critique to the funding structures that dominate African cinema today. He acknowledges the irony of relying on European financial support while striving to create stories that center African perspectives.
As a co-founder of Mokoari Street Media, a collective and production company established in Lesotho in 2009, Mosese is committed to fostering solidarity among African filmmakers. Ancestral Visions of the Future was produced alongside Paris-based Agat Films and Germany’s Seera Films, but Mosese believes a shift is on the horizon. He envisions a future where African cinema is independently financed and creatively autonomous. “With time, we can produce our own films without relying on European money,” he says, describing the continent’s filmmakers as being “in the process of becoming.”