In 2018, Berlin-based filmmaker Sarah Marecek attended Stellenbosch University as a student. After enrolling at the university, she couldn’t help but notice the unnerving silence that surrounded the recent nationwide student protests which had rocked the country. Since 2015, students across South Africa had been protesting for a decolonised education system and calling for a halt to increases in academic fees. Marecek wondered how these protests had impacted on this historically white Afrikaans university. Documenting her conversations with student activists, professors, and a human rights lawyer, she encountered a deep desire for change. Waking Stellenbosch explores the activism of the “born free” generation – those born after 1994 – when confronted with an institution entrenched in the history of colonialism and Apartheid.
