Discover 'Sabbatical': a touching tale that redefines success through the heartfelt bond of mother and daughter

IOL News

07-05-2025

Mona Monyane as Lesego with Clementine Mosimane as her mother Dorris in the heartfelt drama, 'Sabbatical'.
Image: Supplied
'Sabbatical', a homegrown Mother's Day movie, hits the big screen on Friday, May 9.
In an interview with writer-director Karabo Lediga and producer Kagiso Lediga, they discussed how the difficult mother-daughter dynamic in their work captivates viewers, immersing them in a world where personal grounding, not wealth, defines success.
The film opens with Lesego (Mona Monyane), a high-flying corporate climber on the cusp of a promotion to CEO at LouwFin. Her life takes a tumultuous turn when she becomes entangled in a financial scandal involving the misappropriation of a miners' pension fund.
As such, she retreats to her childhood home in the township in Pretoria, where she is forced to face the harsh reality of her career being over while being abandoned by so-called friends.
She also has to face her mother Doris (Clementine Mosimane) and the ghosts she's been running from since leaving for the big city and an opulent lifestyle that left little room for family or friends from the township.
While dealing with financial ruin as her accounts have been frozen, she dodges the calls from Percy Mthimkhulu (Loyiso Gola), the tenacious investigator on the case.
On what inspired this particular story, Karabo shared: ' I've always found my relationship with my mom, who's quite a huge character in my life, quirky, funny. There's a constant conflict, but there's also a lot of humour between the two of us; kind of a typical mother and daughter relationship in this country, on this continent, at this time.
'She's a huge influence on my life, and I've always thought how interesting it could be to write a narrative around that sort of relationship.'
She hit the jackpot with the casting of the mother and daughter roles in the film.
' It was always going to be tricky getting extremely talented actors. I mean, that was the first requirement: extremely talented leads, but who were also convincing as mother and daughter.
'I always had different actors in mind. But when we went to auditions, they (referring to Monyane and Mosimane) were the strongest performers in the auditions for sure.
"They worked convincingly on screen, but I think a bonus was also what they brought to the table because they also had interesting experiences of mother-daughter relationships that they kind of poured into the project.'
A behind the scenes shot of Karabo Lediga, the writer and director of 'Sabbatical'.
Image: Supplied