Juliette Binoche and Samuel L. Jackson star in ?In My Country,? a dramatic movie that plays out during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings. Founded in 1996 by the South African government, the TRC was charged with investigating human rights abuses during Apartheid.

Samuel L. Jackson stars as Washington Post journalist, Langston Whitfield, one of the reporters sent to cover the TRC hearings.

Juliette Binoche plays Anna Malan, an Afrikaans poet who is reporting on the hearings for the South African state radio and NPR in the United States.

INTERVIEW WITH JULIETTE BINOCHE (?Anna Malan?):

What conclusion do you think the movie comes to?
Well, I never thought it was filmed being a conclusion. I thought it was more of a question mark as how can we change from revenge to trying to find another way to build a possible present that is healthier and more human. It?s more about a question. Definitely there?s one step forward as playing Anna Malan is to say, ?Forgive me. Forgive me, forgive me.? Because it?s the consciousness of being aware that her own people and herself ? because she comes from this nation who is privileged ? that she can say it because she understands that she is responsible, even though she didn?t kill anyone. Because it?s her own people, she has to be responsible for it and say, ?I?m sorry.? That?s the first step forward. After that, the second step would be to take action, to do something specific.

And as Langston, suddenly he sees her in a different way because she?s taking the pain and she?s taking the responsibility then he can allow her in his heart somehow. I think that?s, for me, one of the messages.

If you ask me personally, ?But how can you forgive?,? that?s a big, big, big, big question. And there?s some victims that couldn?t forgive and that I completely understand because that?s almost impossible, physically and emotionally. Because it?s like how can you understand that horror? And I?ve been trying to. That?s mainly what I?ve been doing during the year of preparation. How an Afrikaner person can go that far and in actually understanding the history of what they?ve been through?

They came in the 17th century and they were farmers. They were simple people who wanted to make a nice living and live in a nice country. They were no battles between the 12 tribes. There was already a complicated situation there when they arrived. There was kind of a respect, even though they never felt like equals. And then after that, when the English came and when they discovered there was gold and diamonds, then it became another story. And the battle and the conflicts started to be really bad.

In 1920 what happened is that the English, because the battle was so bad between Afrikaners and English, the English won and they put 20,000 Afrikaners in the first concentration camp ever [created] and killed them. The farms were all burnt and the men killed. And so Afrikaners became the poorest, or at least as poor as the black people ? some of them. And so the terror of being ripped out of the map when they had the power in 1948, suddenly they became like? Holding the power became the obsession. They started [telling] lies and the apartheid started like that, out of this huge drama and fear they had before.

Because the kids ? the Afrikaners kids ? were sent to Berlin in order to have an education and go to university during the Nazis time, when they came back they had a very specific way of thinking and being racist and all that. So as the English, South Africans were sent to London and came back home with another way of thinking. The situation created this horrible system and the more that the black were put aside and laws after laws, suddenly Afrikaners were holding the situation. Activists started to explode. They created this headquarters of killing because it was their way of trying to control the situation. But you can?t live like that.

When you understand a little bit of the history, suddenly you don?t judge. You understand. It doesn?t mean that you don?t feel pain and disgust. But at least you say, ?Okay, now I understand where you come from.? And also knowing that the used the religion side, finding in the Bible the interpretation of some sentences to use against black people and to be racist. There were so? Holding one another?s hands so much that it became almost impossible to understand, but you have to. As an actor you have to anyway to understand all the layers.