Directed by Embeth Davidtz | Written by Davitz, adapting the memoir by Alexandra Fuller | 98 min | ▲▲▲ 1/2 

Davidtz is a South African actor — terrific in Schindler’s List, Junebug, and Mad Men, amongst other film and television  — turned director in this confident, if awkwardly titled debut. It’s set in Rhodesia – Zimbabwe in 1980 just as Robert Mugabe was coming to power. We see the world through the eyes of a seven-year-old white girl, Bobo (Lexi Venter, astonishing).

She lives with her older sister, father and mother (also Davidtz) on a farm in the bush. Bobo is practically feral, riding around on a dirt bike. The key relationship here is between her and a Black Zimbabwean, Sarah (Zikhona Bali), who works in their home as a housekeeper. The film documents the tail end of a colonial hangover. The sense of grit and authenticity is what impresses, capturing a lifestyle of oddly impecunious privilege, with Davidtz’s mother self-medicating undiagnosed mental illness with alcohol and Bobo running wild, doing whatever she pleases.

It’s Venter’s presence and energy that’ll stick with you, maybe Davidtz the director’s most impressive achievement, how she managed to coax it onto the screen.  That and the gorgeous sense of place, and the care to era cultural detail — like the placement of Roger Whittaker and  “The Warrior” from Ipi Tombi on the soundtrack, the fragments of Euro culture enmeshed in Africa, shaking loose.