Take an old and revolting story of disrespect and abuse, of entrenched behaviour and broken dreams. Put it into the mouth and sensibilities of young filmmakers and you may find yourself in the presence of an unexpected bit of pure poetry. This is what you can anticipate in […]
WHO OWNS THE abalone (perlemoen)? Who has a right to poach it? Who doesn’t? Why is it illegal for local South Africans to do so? These important questions lie at the heart of John Gutierrez’s film Sons of the Sea. A circular tale of desperation, death and diving […]
A THEATRE OPENING event in Johannesburg never felt complete before the arrival of Des and Dawn Lindberg, arguably one of South African theatre’s First Couples. When they entered the auditorium to take their places in a production’s audience, it felt as though a precious parental blessing had been […]
By Suzanne Belling After fighting leukaemia for over 20 years, actress, TV producer/director, comedienne, children’s poet, drama coach, teacher and grandmother Helen Heldenmuth succumbed to the side-effects of treatment and the disease itself on August 5. She was 78. There were so many facets to her that one could […]
WHEN YOU WATCH the political rhetoric being thrust hither and yon on social media and other young platforms, the one thing that you notice is its lack of nuance. Political diatribe in South Africa in 2019 paints white people as racists. Blanketly. Utterly regardless of their history or […]
“IN MY NEXT project, I will be making a wildebeest out of 10 000 dried locusts that Wits University’s Zoo Museum curator has decommissioned and given me.” You wouldn’t expect a statement of that nature from anyone other than South African mosaic sculptor Hannelie Coetzee, whose work you can […]
AGEING IS A funny thing. Sure, it’s about vanity and keeping up appearances; it’s about reining in the metabolism and trying not to count the wrinkles, but it’s also about the clarity to say ‘no’ to things that you hate but would have been too polite to refuse […]
SAY THE NAME ‘Roger Ballen’ to certain people and you will get a rather judgemental and furious response, even before they know the context or the work being shown. Ballen on Film is a very important exhibition that should disengage all the Ballen nay-sayers, but it may well […]
A BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED tale of loyalty and values learned and imbibed, Dalene Matthee’s novel Die Judasbok (The Scapegoat) translates with a true sense of Klein Karoo grit into an Afrikaans-language radio drama you won’t forget in a hurry. It’s an extremely sensitive and intelligent radio-adaptation that will haunt […]
WHAT ARE YOU, effectively, if you do not fit the basic identifiers of the people all around you? This question comes under the sensitive but probing and compelling loupe of newly released Afrikaans (with English subtitles) film, Vaselinetjie. Like British director Alan Bleasdale’s mini-series that interpreted Dickens’s Oliver […]
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