Pumla is a clinical psychologist and Senior Research Professor at the University of the Free State. She served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as coordinator of victims’ public hearings in the Western Cape. 

In that role, she participated in, and facilitated encounters between family members of victims of gross human rights violations and perpetrators responsible for these human rights abuses.

She has been studying the process of forgiveness and its relation to past trauma, in encounters between survivors/victims of gross human rights violations and perpetrators, in order to deepen understanding of the reparative elements of forgiveness. 

In the film, she provides both the academic perspective to conflict transformation, as well as her own real life experience working with people who have been involved and affected by violent conflict.