In the film, an actor who wants to play a gangster gets in touch with a childhood friend who is now a criminal. Is there a distortion of morality when gangsters are perceived as heroes?

We live in a society in which there is much ambivalence to morality. There's a blurring of lines these days and a romanticism about the gangster world. You get gangsters in Soweto modelling themselves on Hollywood gangsters and in one case recently, an actor in South Africa got beaten up by gangsters because they thought he'd been showing off too much in a gangster role he was playing on TV.

Were you worried that the authorities may not take kindly to your exposure of problems in South Africa?

When the film was first shown in Cannes last year, I was worried that the South African Ambassador and a Deputy Minister present might be irritated at some of things I showed but they were actually quite complimentary. Their reaction along with many others was "I know someone who's been carjacked or I've been a victim myself." Everybody has a story to tell.

Apartheid may have gone but does indirect racism still exist in South Africa?

I'm afraid so. A certain brutalisation in society still exists. The ending of apartheid was an astute political act to avoid civil war and a fragmentation of society, but for all its importance, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission didn't give enough people a sense of closure. What's left is the attitude of "why should I care about justice for others, if I don't think it exists for me?" All I can do as a film maker is try and address certain issues so that others can attempt to make more sense of them.