“I just really related to the central character of this young, spunky little girl… so I wrote the screenplay with her as the voice and as the narrator, telling the story of that African childhood from her point of view,” says Embeth Davidtz’s of her directorial debut, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, a striking adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s acclaimed 2001 memoir.
The poignant South African drama Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight was written and directed by Embeth Davidtz in her feature debut, adapted from Alexandra Fuller’s acclaimed memoir.
Set in the waning days of the Rhodesian Bush War, the film follows 8-year-old Bobo (played by Lexi Venter) as she navigates a childhood shaped by political upheaval, familial instability, and a deep, complicated bond with the African land her family refuses to let go of.
The film has been praised for its lyrical storytelling and emotional nuance, capturing the raw contradictions of a white Zimbabwean family clinging to a fading world.
“My parents are South African,” Davidtz says. “They were studying in the States. I was born there, and then our life was uprooted, and we moved to South Africa when I was eight. Bobo reminds me of arriving in South Africa, being in a poor family with an alcoholic parent in a country that was so racist. I was a child who suddenly had this separation between what I was seeing and what I knew to be right or wrong. I was seeing how casual the racism was. You know, the benches said, ‘Whites only.’ It was still that time.”
Davidtz, who also stars as Fuller’s sad, alcoholic mother, brings a haunting intimacy to the screen, balancing the innocence of childhood with the brutal legacy of colonialism.
The film rests on the tiny shoulders and remarkably lifelike performance of Lexi Venter — just 7 when the picture, her first, was shot. The largely South African cast displays the same naturalism as Venter, creating a consistent tone. Rob Van Vuuren plays Bobo’s father, who is at times away fighting, and Anina Hope Reed is her older sister. Bali and Shilubana are especially impressive as Sarah and Jacob, their portrayals suggesting a resistance to white rule that the characters can’t always speak out loud.
Elegant, stylistically assured, and visually articulate, the film unfolds entirely from the perspective of Bobo, who runs around with animals at the shabby farm, dirty and barefoot, observes her father Tim’s (Rob Van Vuuren) and alcoholic mother Nicola’s (Davidtz) struggles and copies all the racist remarks she’s heard from her parents, parroting them to her family’s Black servants, Sarah (Zikhona Bali) and Jacob (Fumani N. Shilubana). Through Bobo, Davidtz both emphasizes the cost of what children inadvertently perceive, and how racism is passed down through generations.
Adapting Alexandra Fuller’s acclaimed memoir.
Davidtz, the talented star of Schindler’s List, Bridget Jones Diary and The Morning Show, grew up in South Africa; that country’s divided background influenced how she adapted Alexandra Fuller’s memoir about her youth in Rhodesia in 1980 when an election shifted the balance of power in that country (now Zimbabwe) forever. Davidtz’s film adaptation of Fuller’s book chronicles the shifting racial and power dynamics in a country through the eyes of a child.
“The book was a big hit in 2001, and someone bought the rights then, sat with it, attempted to crack the screenplay [but couldn’t],” says Davidtz. “It is a 22-year memoir. My desktop was littered with the drafts that I wrote. I first started by writing the whole thing: the young Bobo, the middle-aged, then the older. Then, at one point, I gave it to somebody else, and she didn’t even know the direction to go in. Then I gave it to Alexandra. I adore her writing, but she went completely off on a tangent. And so I said, “Alexandra, I love you. But I’m going to take it.” And she’s like, “Go for it.” So I isolated myself and chose one window through the child’s eyes. That was the thing that made it work. I borrow heavily from the book as Alexandra writes dialogue very well. Like when Bobo is younger, she would say, “I can fire you if I want” [to Sarah]. That was Alexandra.”
Davidtz’s adaptation leans into the memoir’s emotional core rather than attempting a comprehensive retelling. One of her boldest choices was to frame the entire narrative through young Bobo’s point of view, depicting a child’s view of the civil war that created the country of Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia — a change the girl’s white colonial parents fiercely resisted. It filters complex political and racial dynamics through a lens of innocence and confusion, allowing the audience to experience the dissonance between what Bobo sees and what we understand.
Rather than covering the full scope of Fuller’s memoir, Davidtz focused on a single pivotal year—1980—when Zimbabwe transitioned from Rhodesia. This tight focus gave the screenplay a lyrical, almost dreamlike quality, emphasising memory over chronology.
Much of the story is told through Bobo’s voiceover, paired with stark, sun-drenched cinematography. The film was shot in South Africa, and Willie Nel’s cinematography, with glaring bright light, suggests the scorching feel of the sun.
Davidtz’s script uses silence, repetition, and fragmented dialogue to evoke the disorientation of childhood in a collapsing world.
It’s a fascinating case of an actor-turned-director using her own emotional intuition to shape a deeply personal adaptation. that shift from interpreting characters to authoring a cinematic world speaks volumes about Embeth Davidtz’s sensibility as a storyteller. What makes her journey especially compelling is how she didn’t just direct a narrative—she unearthed it, layering her personal history into the very bones of the film.
The result feels less like a traditional adaptation and more like a memory film: not confined by structure, but led by sensory truth, fragmented silence, and unspoken grief. It’s also a quietly radical move, centring whiteness in postcolonial Africa not as dominance, but as dissonance and displacement, especially through a child’s eyes.
It’s a rare triple-threat debut—writing, directing, and acting—with Davidtz channeling her personal connection to the material into a film that’s both intimate and politically resonant.
Embeth Davidtz is a South African-American actress and director known for her emotionally nuanced performances and her recent transition behind the camera. She gained international recognition for her role as Miss Honey in Matilda (1996) and as Helen Hirsch in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993). Her filmography spans genres—from period dramas like Feast of July to thrillers like Thir13en Ghosts and The Amazing Spider-Man series, where she played Mary Parker. Born to South African parents while her father was studying in the U.S., Davidtz moved to South Africa at age nine. She had to learn Afrikaans to attend school and later trained in drama at Rhodes University. Her early stage work with CAPAB included Romeo and Juliet and Stille Nag, earning her critical acclaim in both English and Afrikaans productions.
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