9 August, 2017 - 08:29
A new local biopic on Khoi historical figure Krotoa opens on circuit this week after raking in eight international festival awards so far. Grethe Kemp speaks with director Roberta Durrant about who Krotoa, the woman some consider the mother of coloured people in South Africa, really was. by Grethe Kemp
I am Krotoa! she tells herself, screaming, crying, in the fort of Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch settlers of the 1600s. She's taken off her long, bodiced European dress and is back in the skins and beads of her people. The Dutch call her Eva, but although she has adopted their religion, their culture and their language, she is not Eva. She is Krotoa.
She'd come there to work as a servant, nanny and playmate to Van Riebeeck, his wife Maria and their children. Maybe she wanted to go - enchanted by these new settlers in their feathered hats, enchanted by the wares they unloaded from their ships. Or maybe she didn't, and was bartered by her uncle Autshumao (named Harry/Herry die Strandloper, first by the English and then by the Dutch).
Women didn't count much in the 1600s, and even less so if you weren't white. So, for Krotoa to have been mentioned in historical documents such as Van Riebeeck's diary shows that she must have been remarkable.
At the fort she quickly picked up Dutch and some Portuguese, and soon became Van Riebeeck's primary translator.
Beyond simply translating, she possessed the skill of negotiation and diplomacy. History notes that she played a pivotal part in not only forging cooperation between the settlers and her relative Oedasoa, but was instrumental in working out terms for ending the First Dutch-Khoi War.
Land was the primary dispute, as it remains to this day. Livestock was also an issue, and where cattle could graze.
Penguin Films' Roberta Durrant, known for her many TV productions including 'Sgudi 'Snaysi, Stokvel and Izikizi and her feature-length films including Felix, has now put Krotoa's life on screen.
#Trending asked her about the research that went into depicting a character who lived such a long time ago.
Kaye Ann Williams, now the head of content at M-Net, created a documentary series for the SABC called Hidden Histories. We [Penguin Films] produced two episodes and one of them was on Krotoa. If you go back and look at what you actually have to work with - you've got oral traditions and Khoi knowledge about the tribes, the chiefs and their ancestry. And then you also have various historians who have written essays and subject matter on Krotoa and on that period. But a lot of it is supposition and a lot of it is deduction. There's actually very little written down factually or in history books.
What we have from that period is Van Riebeeck's diary, and that diary was actually not even written by his scribes. We say quite clearly that the story is a narrative fictional story inspired by what we believe were the historical facts. You're going back to 1652, and history was very much a man's domain. Women didn't have a voice, not in a European context, or any context, really. What Kaye wanted to do was give Krotoa a voice, in terms of the deductions and the facts at our disposal.
The violation
An integral part of the film was Krotoa's complex relationship with her benefactor, Van Riebeeck. Although Krotoa was elevated from a simple servant to the status of interpreter, there was obviously still a master-servant dynamic between them. But the fact that he took Krotoa in as a Dutch woman shows that he must have been drawn to her, and could very well have been attracted to her. In the film, this forbidden lust (Van Riebeeck was married and his wife Maria stayed in the fort) ultimately leads to him raping Krotoa.
There's no concrete evidence that that happened other than supposition, says Durrant. In terms of the rape, it was a very complicated moment in the film. And hopefully it comes across, but theirs was a complicated relationship and we chose to make it that way...
But we hope that people see in the rape a metaphor. We want to look at the rape in terms of an attraction to a country and a place by the Dutch, and how they ultimately settled here and they took this as their place. And it was a brutal occupation, in the sense that the Khoi people were displaced, a lot of them did die, and there were the Dutch-Khoi wars, and land was taken.
Though kept hush-hush during apartheid, and even today, the fact that Van Riebeeck and many Dutch settlers had sex with Khoi women is documented history. The issue of consensuality is a difficult one. Sure, many of these women may have been willing partners, but what was the power dynamic? Can one ever call sex between a more powerful coloniser and a more or less oppressed woman consensual?
I asked Crystal-Donna Roberts, who plays Krotoa wonderfully in the film, what it was like filming the scene. Roberts is most known for her role in 7de Laan, but has lately been taking on heavier roles, including Tiny in Oliver Hermanus' violent and melancholic The Endless River.
It was intense, especially considering the reality of this country and the rape statistics that we have. But on set a safe space is provided for you in terms of the team and my co-star [Armand Aucamp] and the people you're working with.
Advertise Here
Market your Film Services
Start a Film Marketing Campaign Today
No middle ground
Although cooperation and diplomacy between the settlers and Khoi were things both Krotoa and Van Riebeeck believed in, there would ultimately be no compromise. When Van Riebeeck left in 1662 and the more conservative Zacharias Wagenaer took his place, Krotoa found herself dismissed as interpreter. Her marriage to Danish soldier Pieter van Meerhof (the first documented interracial marriage in South A
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
9 August, 2017 - 08:29 
