NORTHAM, SOUTH AFRICA 10 August 2009: South African rock group Fokofpolisier performs at the Oppikoppi Smoorverlief festival in Northam. Thousands of people attended this years Oppikoppi festival. Photo by Gallo Images/Foto24/Cornel van Heerden)
Image Credits: Gallo Images
--
In 2003, Afrikaans punk rock band fokofpolisiekar revolutionised the South African music scene. Disillusioned with conservative Calvinism which was so deeply ingrained in Afrikaans culture and not afraid to question the Afrikaner identity associated with Apartheid, the band gave a jaded generation a new identity.
Their documentary, Fokofpolisiekar: Forgive Them for They Know Not What They Do was first released in 2009 and won the Audience Award at Encounters Documentary Festival that year. It is currently running on ShowMax and rumour has it, the band is due to release a new album later this year.
Directed by Bryan Little, who later went on to direct U2's music video for This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now. His documentary, African Cypher, won both the Encounters audience award and the Durban International Film Festival jury prize. Wim Steytler, who worked as editor on the documentary, has made the switched to director and has won the CFP-E/Shots Young Director Award at Cannes Lions in 2014.
But even six years after its release, the documentary is still pertinent. Just as the lyric in their title track from their debut album says: En nou's dit ses jaar later // En soms voel als nogsteeds dieselfde .
The documentary explores, amongst other things, how fokof jolted a subculture of young, white South Africans who were as disillusioned with the church, Apartheid and Afrikaner as they were into rebelling against their values. It also offers some insight into the whirlwind rise of a band who was never even supposed to get radio play considering their apparently offensive name.
The documentary asks serious questions about just how obsessed Afrikaner (and to an extent, Afrikaans) culture still is with the church, underscored by the incident involving bassist Wynand Myburgh - writing Fuck God on singer Bobby van Jaarsveld's brother's wallet. It made the pages of Afrikaans dailies several times over and ignited a debate about the value of freedom of speech from some members of the church.
Would an incident like this even have been a footnote in European countries? Probably not. That small incident and the subsequent snowball effect, then, underscores the influence the band had on the ideals their music set out to question.
What the documentary lacks, though, is a more acute exploration of the deeply self-destructive spiral some of the members fell into.
Drummer Snake jumping out of a moving car, breaking his arm and a temp drummer having to be brought in for a recording is featured, but it rarely ventures deep into the challenges that came with being thrown into the limelight.
The film is also dated slightly by the lack of a deeper examination of the band being open to misinterpretation (their words).
At times during their journey, they were misinterpreted and not just by the systems they were fighting against. As they grew in popularity and attracted a more mainstream audience (often those same rugby-playing, box-ticking sheep that attracted more than a few mentions in the lyrics) gigs which once felt like a sanctuary sometimes felt hostile. Also absent is the broader debate on who might identify as an Afrikaner, a debate that is becoming increasingly poignant.
Of course, these considerations are all in hindsight. And what fokof managed to achieve still remains one of the most extraordinary things in the South African music industry.
To this day, they have no contemporaries. While many other Afrikaans rock bands drew inspiration from Die Bende, no one else has so far managed to replicate the success or relevance.
And if you ever wondered how it all happened, or you want a flashback to your pissed off and bloodied up mosh pit days, this is a good start.
What the critics said in 2009:
Will literally blow fans away. It's a socio-political time capsule that will make an even more interesting retrospective 20 years from now. If you're a South African and you like rock music, it's a must-see. Spling
For rock n roll voyeurs, it's priceless viewing A landmark. Channel24
Captures the way the controversial band gave voice to a generation of young Afrikaners disillusioned with the church, the state and their Apartheid heritage. The Callsheet
For fans of the band, this is the holy grail. IMDB review
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...
NORTHAM, SOUTH AFRICA 10 August 2009: South African rock group Fokofpolisier performs at the Oppikoppi Smoorverlief festival in Northam. Thousands of people attended this years Oppikoppi festival. Photo by Gallo Images/Foto24/Cornel van Heerden)
