Orania is a small territory in central South Africa. A group of white South Africans, the descendants of European immigrants, decide to resist the notion of the country as a “rainbow nation” and have chosen this forlorn spot far from civilisation as their home. They jealously guard their distinctive culture, living according to their own rules – practically independent of the state whose territory surrounds them. They have even created their own currency. The group takes in new, “ethnically pure” members upset by the loss of their dominant position in society after the fall of apartheid. Growing crime and unemployment in surrounding areas and the desire for their own cultural identity hold the closed community together. This documentary examines the roots of this social experiment, which conceals open discrimination beneath the pretence of seeking the right to self-determination and the preservation of tradition.
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