The true story of Sandra Laing (Okonedo), a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners, unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, who lovingly bring her up as their 'white' little girl. But at the age of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society. The film follows her thirty-year journey from rejection to acceptance, betrayal to reconciliation, as she struggles to define her place in a changing world.