KykNet Silwerskermfees brings Afrikaans films to the Neerlands

The KykNet Silwerskermfees will bring three Afrikaans films to the Festival voor het Afrikaans in The Netherlands this weekend. The festival celebrates the renaissance of Afrikaans-language film making in recent years.

Despite the financial hurdles that face any prospective Afrikaans film project, South Africa now produces in the region of 10 Afrikaans films a year. The vast majority are good; and some are excellent. The festival will offer to the Dutch and visitors from elsewhere a window into a living, breathing culture that celebrates its links to Europe and its roots in Africa.

The films being showcased are:

Die Wonderwerker

Eugene Marais was not only a remarkable poet and naturalist, he was also an extraordinary person whose life was a continuous source of drama and controversy. In 1908 he is a qualified lawyer who just spent a solitary two years amongst the baboons of the remote Waterberg, studying their habits.

On his way back to Nylstroom, in the grip of malaria, he stops on a farm looking for drinking water. Observing his weakness and the seriousness of his illness, Gys van Rooyen and his wife Maria take him into their home to recover. Here he also meets their son Adriaan and their seventeen year old adopted daughter, Jane Bradshaw. Jane is a striking embodiment of his late wife Aletta and Eugene gradually looses his heart to her. But Adriaan is also in love with her.

Eugene has a secret demon - his morphine addiction. Maria van Rooyen, a lonely woman who leads an unfulfilled life, discovers his secret and confiscates his morphine. She desperately needs his attention and uses the morphine to assert control over him. This leads to a love quadrangle, like a time bomb ticking.

Producer: Sonneblom Films

Director: Katinka Heyns

Screenwriter: Chris Barnard

Cinematographer: Koos Roets

Editor: Ronelle Loots

Cast: Dawid Minnaar, Elize Cawood, Marius Weyers, Cobus Rossouw, Anneke Weidemann , Sandra Kotze

Verraaiers

Commandant Jacobus van Aswegen is a loving father and husband, as well as a respected Boer officer. Upon hearing that the enemy, the British, are planning a scorched earth -policy, he decides to go home and protect his wife and family instead of further participation in the Anglo-Boer War.

This decision leads to him and his sons being tried for high treason. All of them are found guilty in a very one-sided trial and sentenced to death. Van Aswegen, convinced of his cause, pleads with genl. Koos de la Rey to pardon them. Will they be saved in time ?

Producers: Piet de Jager, Danie Bester, Themba Sibeko

Director: Paul Eilers

Screenwriter: Salmon de Jager

Cinematographer: Tom Marais

Cast: Gys de Villiers, Rika Sennett, Vilj Maritz, Andrew Thompson, Jacques Bessenger, Neil Bennet, Johan Baird

Die Ongelooflike Avontuur van Hanna Hoekom

A coming of age dramatic comedy based on the novel by award-winning Afrikaans author, Marita van der Vyfer. Hanna is an intelligent and imaginative young girl who's earned herself the nickname Hoekom because she's forever questioning things. When her eccentric mother decides that the family - including her gay biological dad, actor stepfather, detestable half-brother and two stepbrothers should spend their winter holiday in a remote house on the mountain, they end up stranded with nowhere to go and no-one to turn to except each other. It turns out to be an unexpected learning experience for all of them.

Producer: Gustav Kuhn

Director: Regardt van den Bergh

Screenwriter: Gustav Kuhn (based on the book by Marita van der Vyfer)

Cinematographer: Tom Marais

Editor: C.A. van Aswegen

Cast: Anneke Weidemann, Anna-Mart van der Merwe, Gys de Villiers, Helene Lombard, Tertius Meintjies

For more information on tickets and showing times, see www.festivalvoorhetafrikaans.nl

LINK:	http://www.thesouthafrican.com/entertainment/kyknet-silwerskermfees-br...
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