Synopsis

Cape Town, South Africa. The city with the highest homicide rate in the world — a place where breathtaking beauty coexists with an invisible, daily violence. Being Human – The Scars of Cape Town is a journey through these contradictions: into the streets of the Cape and the neighborhoods still marked by decades of inequality and segregation, where the legacy of apartheid continues to carve deep social wounds.

Guided by Pablo Trincia and directed by Paolo Negro, the series enters the hideouts of Cape Town’s most violent rival gangs, collecting direct testimonies from those living on the edge — ex-convicts, mothers who have lost their children, social workers, and young people struggling to escape the cycle of violence.

It’s a narrative that alternates tension and poetry, journalism and intimacy, revealing a city suspended between despair and resilience.

Recognition &Critical Response

Shot with an immersive approach and a warm, contrast-rich cinematography, the series combines raw documentary realism with a distinctly cinematic language. Paolo Negro’s direction turns Cape Town’s streets into an emotional mosaic — the camera moves close to the bodies, breaths, and scars of the city.

Testimonies and interviews intertwine with observational sequences, symbolic imagery, and evocative visual reconstructions — light as a metaphor for resilience, skin as a map of memory.

“A necessary, intense, deeply human account that restores complexity to a place too often reduced to stereotype.” – ANSA

“Pablo Trincia and Paolo Negro build a journey of empathy and awareness, where investigation becomes encounter and denunciation turns into compassion.” – La Repubblica

“A work that blends journalistic rigor with cinematic sensitivity.” – Sky TG24

Director’s Note – Paolo Negro

“I wanted to film scars as signs of life, not as wounds. In every face, in every neighborhood, the same question lingers: what does it mean, today, to be human?”