While You Weren’t Looking

Completed2015South Africa104 min

Dez and Terri have built a comfortable life together in Cape Town, but the security of their long relationship conceals growing distance. Their…Read more +Read less −

Dez and Terri have built a comfortable life together in Cape Town, but the security of their long relationship conceals growing distance. Their adopted daughter Asanda is also questioning the identity and social world she has inherited. Meeting Shado, who lives in Khayelitsha, brings her into contact with a different experience of queer life and inequality. Across the two generations, private desire becomes inseparable from questions of race, class and the promises of post-apartheid South Africa. The family’s apparent openness does not prevent misunderstandings or protect it from painful choices. The drama follows two relationship strands to explore how freedom can coexist with unexamined privilege, and how intimacy may expose divisions that a comfortable home has allowed its occupants to overlook.

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Drama Romance

Sapphic characters & cast

Sandi Schultz

as Dez

Main sapphic character

Exact-film cast panel publicity portrait

Camilla Waldman

as Terri

Main sapphic character

Exact-film cast panel publicity portrait

Petronella Tshuma

as Asanda

Main sapphic character

Official Owen S Management performer headshot; rights pending

Thishiwe Ziqubu

as Shado

Main sapphic character

Exact-film cast panel publicity portrait

YOUR FIRST LOOK

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Watch trailer on youtube.com ↗ · The YouTube player loads only when you choose it.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Details & credits

Country: South Africa
Language: English, Xhosa, Afrikaans
Premiere: 2015-10-02
Runtime: 104 minutes
Director: Catherine Stewart

Exact-film catalogue poster; provenance and rights pending

Artwork source & permission status

Editorial review approved — rights not independently confirmed

Exact-film catalogue poster; provenance and rights pending

Original publication ↗

Sources & editorial notes (4)

Last researched 2026-10-31. Editorially approved.

year: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
genres: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
status: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
country: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
language: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
directors: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
description: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
trailer url: Out In Africa producer original-cut trailer; description explains shorter lesbian festival cut
western cast: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
premiere date: Reprinted Cinema Nouveau release announcement: selected South African theatrical release 2 October 2015
runtime minutes: African Film Festival official programme: 2015 original feature, South Africa, 104 minutes, three original languages; retrieved search text, direct fetch blocked
classification note: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence
representation type: Exact film identity and substantive sapphic lead/story evidence