Tag: Royston Stoffels

How to whistle Daddy’s tune

Telling your own story with its sensitive veils of family nuance is never easy. The “I” in the tale can be tyrannical and cause more damage than healing. Bo Petersen’s portrayal of apartheid and of her father’s choices is compassionate and complex. You weep with empathy; you stave off judgement.

How to herd cats

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you assemble a room full of opinionated characters (and an elderly, deaf accompanist) with a deadline and a music repertoire to perform in public? Broer Gawerjal Grootwoord (Ivan Abrahams) is the choir master who has his hands full in Hallelujah Amen, a delightful piece of […]

Veld foundling

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 […]