The film stars two boys, Hjalmar and Simon, who move to South Africa with their parents. Full of wonder the children begin to explore their new world, which until recently was a white dictatorship treating black people like slaves. In everyday life and travelling across the huge country with their parents the boys encounter the dark shadows from an evil past. But their new African friends are full of warmth and belief in the future and in the end the boys fall in love with Africa.