In this stylish drama that explores the boundaries between life and art, Sox Moraka is a young actor from a middle-class black family living with his white girlfriend in a slick Johannesburg apartment. He has a nice smile and appears in feel-good commercials on television, but he is bored. His shot at the big time comes with a chance to audition for the role of a gangster in a popular television series. Unable to relate to the character, Sox ventures back into Soweto to connect with Zama, a childhood friend turned leader of a carjack gang. As Sox is drawn into violence and machismo, Zama navigates his life with ever increasing artifice until one wonders who is the actor and who is the criminal.