TRUTH BE TOLD

A mighty congratulations on a powerful series.
Antjie Krog – author, A country of my Skull

Truth Be Told offers a powerful and timely reflection on South Africa’s
Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC), especially focusing on cases where justice has yet to
be fully served. By
highlighting the lived experiences of families and the deep,
intergenerational trauma caused by
apartheid-era atrocities, your work opens an important conversation on
the legacy of these unresolved
cases and their significance in today’s sociopolitical context. We are
deeply moved by the series’
exploration of justice delayed and its impact on South African
families

Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative
Quest (AVReQ)
University of Stellenbosch

Truth Commissions and the Limits of Institutional Memory – “The failure
of legal systems to name, hear, and heal is not abstract. Enver Samuel’s documentary series, Truth Be Told, offers piercing testimony to this
failure. Each episode follows the children and families of anti-apartheid activists who were abducted, tortured, and killed by the
apartheid security police. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
promised healing—but delivered half-truths and symbolic closure. Most perpetrators were never held accountable. Most families never received
answers. This series is not only about the past. It speaks to the present architecture of impunity. It affirms what Malikeya insists: truth cannot be outsourced to the state. It must be cultivated in
community, through memory, through story, through grief”.

Extract from Law, Liberation and Lived Experience by Mmabatho Montse –
Conscious Conversations

Reviews

Dorothy Calata

“It inspired me to work harder on the psychological healing model for the TRC cases”

Sonja Holtz

This series is so important if we want to understand South Africa

Zikhona Valela

Please watch this series. Tough to get through, but extremely necessary. The more eyes we have on work like this, the more important stories we’ll have on our screens. I think it should air during the day. It’s too chilling to watch at night.

Asindim Andai Andikhathali

We can manage this trauma and ensure healing if we ordinary South Africans normalize talking about life under apartheid. We saw and experienced in real time what our parents and us went through. At times I do share with my born free kids but its normally a reaction to something.

Shika

I just know that this will break my heart. The price of freedom is blood and innocent blood was shed in the name of apartheid.

Jacqui Hlongwane

Thank you Enver for heeding the call to tell such stories with such
sensitivity, empathy and integrity, your work honors those who lost
their lives in the struggle for South Africa’s liberation by documenting
these stories with such dignity.  Through your impactful work, the
families are offered a sense of closure and a path towards healing. 

Kerryn Assaizky

“People were riveted.  I could hear the intakes of breath and murmurs around me as we watched.  You’ve done something important here”

This series is different in that it not only gives us an insight into
the truth about our history but certainly provokes us to look into the
future and understand the dark truth of the past so that we can
understand the importance of freedom today.  Disemelo Makhanda