Skin is a story that begins in South Africa in 1955. Sandra (Sophie Okonedo) was born to two White Afrikaner parents in rural South Africa. But a genetic throwback causes her skin to be dark and her hair tightly curled. The government’s rigid apartheid system was faced with a serious dilemma. Should Sandra be classified as White or Black? For Sandra and her family, the complications ran far deeper.
Skin follows Sandra as she grows up in a society where color decides everything. She is granted admission to an all-White school, but suffers daily torment from her classmates. Her father is no more liberal than any other rural Afrikaner of his time; he can barely accept his daughter’s dark features, let alone the neighbors’ constant gossip. Even after tests establish that he is in fact Sandra’s biological father, the plain fact of her difference complicates life. Only her mother offers real emotional support, but it comes at a great price to both mother and daughter.
As Sandra grows up and falls in love with a Black man, Okonedo reveals the full spectrum of her character: the childhood hurt, the uncertain identities and, in time, her pride as an African woman.
