Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man, the Jesuit maxim behind the landmark Up Series has now been taken to South Africa, where a group of children, first filmed in 1992 at the age of seven are now 21. Rich and poor, black, white and mixed race, the varied, fascinating and revealing portraits featured in 21 Up South Africa offer unique insights into the social and political changes that have occured throughout South Africa since the crumbling of Apartheid. From townshp slums to old-school mansions to the bushvelt, the 14 children who started the Series have experienced a multitude of changes, just like the country itself. As with time-lapse photography, we see them at ages 7 and 14 - capturing their disarming honesty, dreams, aspirations of the future - and now at 21, trying to figure out their place in the world, part of the new South Africa, its hope for the future. In sucessive interviews we witness their changing attitiudes and experiences about issues ranging from race relations and educational opportunities, to crime and unemployment, to marriage and the AIDS crisis - which has already claimed the lives of three of these children.