bios https://bios.net.za/ Tue, 11 Aug 2026 09:56:28 +0000 Dadoh – Durban 2024 https://bios.net.za/dadoh-durban-2024?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[--- I Hardly Remember Their Names --- From her kitchen in a container near the rank she arrives at night, scolding and so on, in a huff of takeaway styrofoam containers and things exchanged for left over food. Dadoh settles in to the office chair Jimmy spends his days in. “No ma, she’s working next door right now.” Unless Nontle is there, then civility abounds. !--more-- I enter into these conversations of concern knowing sometimes Jimmy needs a backup to some story, in the hope that Dadoh has food spare or something sell-able or will leave Jimmy money and he will buy me a cap. Dadoh is not just a person but an accumulation of deals, acquisitions, prospects, potential. There have been times when she has given me money for no reason, there have been times she has lent me money because she sees me going into withdrawal. Dadoh arrives to find Jimmy gone looking for Nontle and we get into a long conversation, she worries for her son. I defend Nontle because Jimmy would defend Nontle. I try to both defend Nontle and Dadoh’s view of Nontle. Because I am out of caps. Dadoh has no money to lend or give that night. But she lets me use her phone to try reach someone that I can ask for help. The call fails. Dadoh, in an act that makes no sense, walks the twenty meters to the caps dealers and takes credit of two caps for me. “Yes,” Jimmy says later, “My mother is too good for her own health.” I am surrounded by water. On the bed in the back room, during the rain, it comes from somewhere, and fills up the room slowly, floating old condoms from under the bed. Hiding from Sam, from who I have been getting crack on credit. I am shit scared and in withdrawal when Dadoh arrives, it is raining, raining and I need caps and there is nowhere in the rain to spin for caps and I tell Dadoh and Dadoh knows Sam and this is serious. I ask to use her phone. She goes to fetch it from the other room, and returns speaking to my benefactor. Yes, he is smoking again, yes. Yes, I will get him food, and get him to a doctor. And my benefactor sends money and Dadoh buys me caps and sets out to buy food for the house. And comes back with very little food that cost very much. Dadoh will not let me phone my benefactor. Jimmy’s debt to Sam is paid, mine is not. When the withdrawals come crawling at dawn I set out to get my phone back from Sam to call the benefactor. Sam’s people only lets me take my phone for ten minutes and the benefactor is not answering. Underneath the place where Sam’s people operate from, are a series of old storerooms, where girls work and paras smoke, these are separate from the upstairs room for the well paying clients. I am here trying to keep my phone on, borrowing a charger when Bongi tells me that Dadoh stole the equipment that runs her kitchen from a man she was once living with. Someone calls gate and the gate opens and I am down the alley with my phone as quick as I can, with a few percent battery. It’s cold in the petrol station forecourt and the convenience store worker only arrives at seven. I huddle across from the exit in the warmth of other withdrawing paras. The convenience store worker is not coming in today. Sam’s people are everywhere and so I walk far, not sure where. Far. The gift shop at the botanic gardens is opening up. The botanic gardens seemed like the place where they would be least likely to look for me. They agree to charge my phone and I go and sleep on the grass while I am waiting. And it’s noon before I wake sweating in the sun, with a boot gently in my side. “You can’t sleep here.” My phone is only on 25%, the tin foil holding the charging pin in place has slipped. I cannot reach anyone, I leave a desperate message saying all I want is an empty room and some medication, and some food. I put the phone back on charge and find a bush to hide in. At around four pm they find me in the bush and I am asked to leave the botanic gardens. Sitting on a hot pavement, the phone comes on at 30%. I manage to have a conversation with the benefactor. She has sent money to Dadoh, who will feed me, and I can stay at Dadoh’s place. And Dadoh will take me to get medication. I beg for money to get transport to go to Dadoh’s and I use that money to go and smoke out the withdrawal. At the end of the long walk, the dull glow of Dadoh’s container kitchen in the waning of traffic, industrial roads, the edge of the city at 9pm. She greets me with a grunt, “Sam has been calling me all day, wanting his money.” Gives me a styrofoam of meat and pap. I sit outside and eat on the still warm pavement. Foremost on my mind is what will I smoke tonight. She burdens me with bags and plastics and so on. We climb into a waiting minibus, that has been waiting for her. She seems to know everyone on board and introduces me as the para she is being paid to make clean. In the warmth of bodies in the chuckling of the end of the day they question me. They give me advice. It is good natured and oppressive. The minibus stops frequently. Dadoh is telling them that the white lady has sent money for medication but she has a better remedy and is taking me to someone tomorrow. The minibus drives past the abandoned methadone clinic where the dealers live in rusting taxis. An organism in the night we hurtle towards twenty six. The relief of the momentum placates me. Until we pass twenty six. No, you are not going to smoke tonight. The well meaning voices become threats and I fling myself out of the taxi as soon as it hits a light. Jimmy does not welcome me. I cannot go to Sam, I find myself in another smoking room and sell my fucked phone for a few caps. Walking to the park, the heat of the day breaks and the warm soaking long night rain of the fucking tropics sets in. There is only one place to go, I walk towards Dadoh’s place. For three long hours I try to find Dadoh’s place, with only the scant direction of Jimmy, follow this road, it’s something gardens, past the traffic school, just before the road ends. There is no traffic school on this road. This road does not end. The opiates take me and I sleep in the crook of tar, a pavement upended by a giant root. In the first light of drizzle, Jimmy says, “No, not this road, the one below.” Dadoh’s buzzer doesn’t work and after some time, how much time, some time, a security guard or is he a gardener or a tenant, goes to fetch Dadoh. I am now exhaustion. Dadoh’s apartment is a stack of boxes, of plastics, of bags, of containers, of black plastics full of clothes, of furniture piled on top of furniture, the bath is an overflow of various boxes of fong kong toiletries and loofahs and cartons of latex gloves and giant bottles of mercurochrome and gentian violet and milk of magnesia and friars balsam and the kitchen is expired two minute noodles and instant coffee gone black hard in tins and dishes and dishes, never been washed dishes and roaches, and the lounge is a pile up of faux leather and broken flatscreens and the fridge is in the lounge and the windows are blocked by stacked foam mattresses and there is a small balcony with a single bed hidden among boxes and this is my room, she says. But first I must shower. I do not want to shower, I want to smoke. She will not give me money to smoke, I must shower and we must get me right. I will not shower. She phones the benefactor. The benefactor says that I must shower, and go get right. I make a bargain, I will shower, and smoke and go get right. Dadoh watches me shower. She does not let me close the curtain. She instructs me on how to shower. Dadoh stands there while I am cleaning the withdrawal shit out of my ass, and the knots out of my hair and the crust out of my eyes and ears and she tells me that I am dirty. I ask her for privacy and she says no, she has been told to make sure I am clean. There is a relentlessness to Dadoh. She has made a promise. For two days she tries to fulfil that promise. She takes me to a traditional healer. I am given a purging tonic. I purge in the shower surrounded by shower caps and vacuum packed soaps and stacks of toothpaste tubes. And the withdrawal continues. Dadoh insists this is the way. I find a way out of the apartment and go and smoke. I hide from Sam. I sleep in the park. I borrow a phone, I complain to the benefactor. The only way is to return to Dadoh. I return to Dadoh, shit running down my legs. Dadoh takes me to smoke. I wake up, it must be mid morning, on the single bed, I try make noodles but there are only paper plates and a mountain of crust and roaches and the kettle does not work. Dadoh emerges from her room, her bed is a pile of lipsticks and lotions and creams and unguents, she rolls off of this, and tells me that we can eat breakfast on the way to the doctor. Finally, my doctor. No, she has a cheaper one, a closer one. Walking up the hill Dadoh asks me if I can find her a white man who will love her. She thinks with a white man she might be successful. The doctor will not prescribe suboxone, he says addiction is all in the mind. He prescribes some minor opiate. Back at Dadoh’s the opiate will not take hold. I pack my meagre things, the few things I have, and Dadoh will not let me leave. I say I just want to sit in the sun. The benefactor is called, I am told to leave my things and come back for them. I come back two days later and Dadoh says I have betrayed her. She will not give me my things until I get the benefactor to pay her for helping me. I crawl back to Sam. To sleep in Bongi’s room. To cadge dots of other paras. Sam comes to the house in the afternoon. I tell him I have been hiding from him and I have lost the phone and I will pay him. Sam shrugs, “I was not looking for you, you come back always.” Three weeks later I am passing Dadoh’s kitchen, it has closed down. --- · →James]]>
I Hardly Remember Their Names

From her kitchen in a container near the rank she arrives at night, scolding and so on, in a huff of takeaway styrofoam containers and things exchanged for left over food. Dadoh settles in to the office chair Jimmy spends his days in.

“No ma, she’s working next door right now.”

Unless Nontle is there, then civility abounds.

I enter into these conversations of concern knowing sometimes Jimmy needs a backup to some story, in the hope that Dadoh has food spare or something sell-able or will leave Jimmy money and he will buy me a cap.

Dadoh is not just a person but an accumulation of deals, acquisitions, prospects, potential. There have been times when she has given me money for no reason, there have been times she has lent me money because she sees me going into withdrawal.

Dadoh arrives to find Jimmy gone looking for Nontle and we get into a long conversation, she worries for her son. I defend Nontle because Jimmy would defend Nontle. I try to both defend Nontle and Dadoh’s view of Nontle. Because I am out of caps. Dadoh has no money to lend or give that night. But she lets me use her phone to try reach someone that I can ask for help. The call fails. Dadoh, in an act that makes no sense, walks the twenty meters to the caps dealers and takes credit of two caps for me.

“Yes,” Jimmy says later, “My mother is too good for her own health.”

I am surrounded by water. On the bed in the back room, during the rain, it comes from somewhere, and fills up the room slowly, floating old condoms from under the bed. Hiding from Sam, from who I have been getting crack on credit. I am shit scared and in withdrawal when Dadoh arrives, it is raining, raining and I need caps and there is nowhere in the rain to spin for caps and I tell Dadoh and Dadoh knows Sam and this is serious. I ask to use her phone. She goes to fetch it from the other room, and returns speaking to my benefactor. Yes, he is smoking again, yes. Yes, I will get him food, and get him to a doctor. And my benefactor sends money and Dadoh buys me caps and sets out to buy food for the house. And comes back with very little food that cost very much.

Dadoh will not let me phone my benefactor. Jimmy’s debt to Sam is paid, mine is not. When the withdrawals come crawling at dawn I set out to get my phone back from Sam to call the benefactor. Sam’s people only lets me take my phone for ten minutes and the benefactor is not answering.

Underneath the place where Sam’s people operate from, are a series of old storerooms, where girls work and paras smoke, these are separate from the upstairs room for the well paying clients. I am here trying to keep my phone on, borrowing a charger when Bongi tells me that Dadoh stole the equipment that runs her kitchen from a man she was once living with.

Someone calls gate and the gate opens and I am down the alley with my phone as quick as I can, with a few percent battery. It’s cold in the petrol station forecourt and the convenience store worker only arrives at seven. I huddle across from the exit in the warmth of other withdrawing paras. The convenience store worker is not coming in today. Sam’s people are everywhere and so I walk far, not sure where. Far.

The gift shop at the botanic gardens is opening up. The botanic gardens seemed like the place where they would be least likely to look for me. They agree to charge my phone and I go and sleep on the grass while I am waiting. And it’s noon before I wake sweating in the sun, with a boot gently in my side. “You can’t sleep here.”

My phone is only on 25%, the tin foil holding the charging pin in place has slipped. I cannot reach anyone, I leave a desperate message saying all I want is an empty room and some medication, and some food. I put the phone back on charge and find a bush to hide in. At around four pm they find me in the bush and I am asked to leave the botanic gardens.

Sitting on a hot pavement, the phone comes on at 30%. I manage to have a conversation with the benefactor. She has sent money to Dadoh, who will feed me, and I can stay at Dadoh’s place. And Dadoh will take me to get medication. I beg for money to get transport to go to Dadoh’s and I use that money to go and smoke out the withdrawal.

At the end of the long walk, the dull glow of Dadoh’s container kitchen in the waning of traffic, industrial roads, the edge of the city at 9pm. She greets me with a grunt, “Sam has been calling me all day, wanting his money.” Gives me a styrofoam of meat and pap. I sit outside and eat on the still warm pavement. Foremost on my mind is what will I smoke tonight.

She burdens me with bags and plastics and so on. We climb into a waiting minibus, that has been waiting for her. She seems to know everyone on board and introduces me as the para she is being paid to make clean.

In the warmth of bodies in the chuckling of the end of the day they question me. They give me advice. It is good natured and oppressive. The minibus stops frequently. Dadoh is telling them that the white lady has sent money for medication but she has a better remedy and is taking me to someone tomorrow. The minibus drives past the abandoned methadone clinic where the dealers live in rusting taxis. An organism in the night we hurtle towards twenty six. The relief of the momentum placates me.

Until we pass twenty six. No, you are not going to smoke tonight. The well meaning voices become threats and I fling myself out of the taxi as soon as it hits a light. Jimmy does not welcome me. I cannot go to Sam, I find myself in another smoking room and sell my fucked phone for a few caps. Walking to the park, the heat of the day breaks and the warm soaking long night rain of the fucking tropics sets in.

There is only one place to go, I walk towards Dadoh’s place. For three long hours I try to find Dadoh’s place, with only the scant direction of Jimmy, follow this road, it’s something gardens, past the traffic school, just before the road ends. There is no traffic school on this road. This road does not end. The opiates take me and I sleep in the crook of tar, a pavement upended by a giant root.

In the first light of drizzle, Jimmy says, “No, not this road, the one below.” Dadoh’s buzzer doesn’t work and after some time, how much time, some time, a security guard or is he a gardener or a tenant, goes to fetch Dadoh. I am now exhaustion. Dadoh’s apartment is a stack of boxes, of plastics, of bags, of containers, of black plastics full of clothes, of furniture piled on top of furniture, the bath is an overflow of various boxes of fong kong toiletries and loofahs and cartons of latex gloves and giant bottles of mercurochrome and gentian violet and milk of magnesia and friars balsam and the kitchen is expired two minute noodles and instant coffee gone black hard in tins and dishes and dishes, never been washed dishes and roaches, and the lounge is a pile up of faux leather and broken flatscreens and the fridge is in the lounge and the windows are blocked by stacked foam mattresses and there is a small balcony with a single bed hidden among boxes and this is my room, she says. But first I must shower. I do not want to shower, I want to smoke. She will not give me money to smoke, I must shower and we must get me right.

I will not shower. She phones the benefactor. The benefactor says that I must shower, and go get right. I make a bargain, I will shower, and smoke and go get right. Dadoh watches me shower. She does not let me close the curtain. She instructs me on how to shower.

Dadoh stands there while I am cleaning the withdrawal shit out of my ass, and the knots out of my hair and the crust out of my eyes and ears and she tells me that I am dirty. I ask her for privacy and she says no, she has been told to make sure I am clean.

There is a relentlessness to Dadoh. She has made a promise. For two days she tries to fulfil that promise. She takes me to a traditional healer. I am given a purging tonic. I purge in the shower surrounded by shower caps and vacuum packed soaps and stacks of toothpaste tubes. And the withdrawal continues. Dadoh insists this is the way. I find a way out of the apartment and go and smoke. I hide from Sam. I sleep in the park. I borrow a phone, I complain to the benefactor. The only way is to return to Dadoh. I return to Dadoh, shit running down my legs. Dadoh takes me to smoke.

I wake up, it must be mid morning, on the single bed, I try make noodles but there are only paper plates and a mountain of crust and roaches and the kettle does not work. Dadoh emerges from her room, her bed is a pile of lipsticks and lotions and creams and unguents, she rolls off of this, and tells me that we can eat breakfast on the way to the doctor. Finally, my doctor. No, she has a cheaper one, a closer one. Walking up the hill Dadoh asks me if I can find her a white man who will love her. She thinks with a white man she might be successful.

The doctor will not prescribe suboxone, he says addiction is all in the mind. He prescribes some minor opiate. Back at Dadoh’s the opiate will not take hold. I pack my meagre things, the few things I have, and Dadoh will not let me leave. I say I just want to sit in the sun. The benefactor is called, I am told to leave my things and come back for them. I come back two days later and Dadoh says I have betrayed her. She will not give me my things until I get the benefactor to pay her for helping me.

I crawl back to Sam. To sleep in Bongi’s room. To cadge dots of other paras. Sam comes to the house in the afternoon. I tell him I have been hiding from him and I have lost the phone and I will pay him. Sam shrugs, “I was not looking for you, you come back always.”

Three weeks later I am passing Dadoh’s kitchen, it has closed down.

· →James

]]> https://bios.net.za/dadoh-durban-2024 Tue, 11 Aug 2026 05:08:57 +0000 Reactionary Review | Benaaihilism | Van Pletzen https://bios.net.za/reactionary-review-benaaihilism-van-pletzen?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Reactionary Review | Benaaihilism | Van Pletzen --- Benaaihilism has to be the dumbest album released in recent times. Big, dumb, and 3am Eternal beautiful. This is a collection of songs entirely for driving from Pretoria to Stellenbosch to meet a girl at Aandklas, and discovering she’s hooked up with someone else, and getting brandy and coke existential about it. !--more-- Musically it’s unremarkable, unless of course you’re on bumbles and 23 and should be studying for your finals. It’s fuck-everything music, interspersed with one-liners that are either really lame or really fokin diep depending on where they find you. Van Pletzen seems to have conceived of Benaaihilism entirely to tour it to university towns so that students can get fucked up and shout along, and what nobler reason is there to make music. Getting tits-out drunk and speeding toward regrets that will make you question everything. Die beats slaan harder than a homemade bong. Benaaihilism constantly tells you what it is, and then is what it is. It literally smells of Tippotinto, Sparberry and crystallised sweat. It takes real skill to make something this stupid and infectious. Also… Afrikaans is a beautiful language, one that can conquer up that exhausted oke on the dancefloor at sunrise without mentioning him at all. The bastard child of Darude and 7de Laan, taking in the aural aesthetics of karaoke slow jams and school playground rap-battle flossing, a full third of Benaaihilism exists for the purpose of saying, “did you hear that?” to a mate while giggling. It’s fucking epic and totally forgettable. Wear sunglasses on the dancefloor, air punch in the smoke and lasers, never grow up. --- Reviews · → Black Burns Fast]]> Reactionary Review | Benaaihilism | Van Pletzen

Benaaihilism has to be the dumbest album released in recent times. Big, dumb, and 3am Eternal beautiful. This is a collection of songs entirely for driving from Pretoria to Stellenbosch to meet a girl at Aandklas, and discovering she’s hooked up with someone else, and getting brandy and coke existential about it. Musically it’s unremarkable, unless of course you’re on bumbles and 23 and should be studying for your finals. It’s fuck-everything music, interspersed with one-liners that are either really lame or really fokin diep depending on where they find you. Van Pletzen seems to have conceived of Benaaihilism entirely to tour it to university towns so that students can get fucked up and shout along, and what nobler reason is there to make music.

Getting tits-out drunk and speeding toward regrets that will make you question everything. Die beats slaan harder than a homemade bong. Benaaihilism constantly tells you what it is, and then is what it is. It literally smells of Tippotinto, Sparberry and crystallised sweat. It takes real skill to make something this stupid and infectious.

Also… Afrikaans is a beautiful language, one that can conquer up that exhausted oke on the dancefloor at sunrise without mentioning him at all.

The bastard child of Darude and 7de Laan, taking in the aural aesthetics of karaoke slow jams and school playground rap-battle flossing, a full third of Benaaihilism exists for the purpose of saying, “did you hear that?” to a mate while giggling. It’s fucking epic and totally forgettable.

Wear sunglasses on the dancefloor, air punch in the smoke and lasers, never grow up.

Reviews · → Black Burns Fast

]]> https://bios.net.za/reactionary-review-benaaihilism-van-pletzen Sat, 08 Aug 2026 08:04:10 +0000 It's Not Not-Acceptance https://bios.net.za/its-not-not-acceptance?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[--- an interview with Sandulela Asanda --- Sandulela Asanda went to an all-girls boarding school, and has now made a feature about going to an all-girls boarding school. Black Burns Fast is out in cinemas countrywide as of last Friday, after a massive festival run that included DIFF last year. Following our review, we tried to figure out how she got from Mirror Mirror, her DIFF-winning short film, to screening her first feature in so many cinemas and doing so many goddamn interviews. !--more-- --- bios: What's the one question you keep getting asked in interviews that you're so tired of? Asanda: I'd say the meaning of the title. Because I thought it was self-explanatory. bios: Yeah, I saw that, and I was like, "Why are they asking that?" Asanda: A lot of the foreign publications I've spoken to ask me, "Is South Africa really like that? Are white people really like that?" And I'm always just like, okay guys… I get it. It was interesting to see how little people knew about modern South African social relations, but I guess we don't have a lot of modern work that speaks to that. bios: But that's just Hollywood. The world's going to perceive us the way the world's going to perceive us. Asanda: Very much so. But it was also clear to me that people are hungry to know what's happening now. I knew instinctively there was a need for the story, and that there'd be an audience. But experiencing it now is a different thing. bios: A lot of reviews position it as a queer story, and I think that shuts other people out who actually need to see it. Asanda: It's a double-edged sword, right? I made this film to contribute to the queer canon with a film that's light, that's positive. bios: Yeah. Asanda: We seldom get that, especially when it's an African narrative too. I did that purposefully, but at the same time, I'm having important political conversations in that film that I want wider audiences to be part of. But at the end of the day, I made this for my younger self who didn't have access to this kind of film. bios: Well it's not Skoonheid, that's for sure. Asanda: Yeah. bios: There is a lot of hand-wringing in gay cinema... Asanda: Yeah, the kids need to know it's chill, that it can be happy on the other side. Especially the way Luthando and her mother's relationship ends up, it's more of a limbo. It's not fully acceptance, but it's also not not acceptance. bios: And that's just the reality sometimes. Asanda: People need to see that in-between. Because more often than not, that is the reality. bios: There's no big resolution at the end. They're just friends, and the relationship with the mother is just where it is, and the relationship with Jodie is just...that's where they are. Asanda: Yeah, and I did that on purpose, really, because they're in high school. So much is going to change about them. They're going to grow so much. Maybe they'll still end up being best friends. I hope they do. And I know it's funny me saying that because I'm the one who kind of is in control of that, but— bios: Really? Because you said... you put the film out into the world and... Asanda: Yeah, exactly. People can run with where they think the future is happening. Even the actresses have their own ideas about what happens next. They've been pitching me a feature. It's funny to hear them do it, and it's also great because they're just that excited. I don't know if that'll be what I'm doing. bios: But you've given them the licence to imagine. Asanda: Yeah, and I'm really proud of that. I'm really proud of that. bios: There's a line in the film where a teacher says, "It's taboo, chaps. It's taboo." I love that — because I've read somewhere you've got a background in economics and law? Asanda: Yes, right. bios: For me, that line is really about how much law and economics govern the way we move through systems. I know it's comedy, but does that background play into how the characters move through and negotiate the school system in the film? Asanda: Oh, definitely. It also informs my understanding of the film and the characters. I can't not think about those things. And also of Rhodes Must Fall — I was in varsity when it was all going down, so I'm very informed about how these systems and structures work. And I do bring that into my work. bios: What I like about that — because I can see it happening in the work, and I can see you upending it in certain places — is that you have such a light touch about it. You don't make a speech. Asanda: Yeah, because you know what I've learned? That's part of why I really wanted this film to show in South Africa. Because you know what? Sometimes South Africans are so used to being lectured to, and for us to really listen to things, we have to laugh first. bios: There's that moment where she makes the comment about apartheid, and then gets kicked out of class for it. That's essentially a joke that becomes quite serious. But she ends up walking down the corridor kind of dismissing it. So you contain something in there — the reversal of not being able to speak about these things in certain situations — and you just handle it lightly. I think that's really valuable, that we can dismiss these things. Asanda: Yeah, and especially in these schools, no one wants to talk about these things. I don't know — my brain is saying people take it too seriously. I do think it is a thing to be too serious about, for it to be taken seriously. But the problem is that there are people carrying it as if they were there then, and as a result they don't want to engage at all when you want to talk about the outcomes and how they affect us now. Whereas we can't have these conversations without getting personal, and acknowledging — yes, maybe you weren't actively part of the past, maybe you weren't born yet, but we're still dealing with the effects. bios: There's heavy stuff that happened in the past and heavy stuff happening now, but… okay, so I was reading this local culture magazine written by academics, everything they say is pertinent, but it's so opaque in its heaviness that no one outside of that circle is going to read it. Asanda: That's why I love film, because it's a more accessible way to have these conversations. People are more willing to watch it. But then again, like you said, if you make it heavy, it's going to keep getting heavier. So it's about being smart about how you approach it. bios: I like that the film is smart in that it's not smart. You've taken all these issues and given them to teenagers. And you can't really argue with teenagers. Asanda: No, you can't. bios: So you went to a boarding school, right — did you shoot the film at your boarding school? Asanda: Oh no, no, no, no. bios: That's disappointing. Asanda: You know what the problem is? My boarding school is in the middle of the Eastern Cape, and very far. You shoot in a different province and that adds millions of rands to your budget, and the film commission won't give you that money from here and that money from there. So we actually shot at three different schools in Cape Town — Rustenburg Girls' High School, SACS, and Sans Souci. bios: Oof! The trifecta of boarding schools. Asanda: Yeah. Bishops was out because everything is all white. bios: Yes, and they won't fly a pride flag. Asanda: Exactly. They wouldn't let us in, probably. bios: So did you at any point want to shoot at your old boarding school? Asanda: Oh yeah, that was my initial desire. And then when it came to putting the costs down, I was like, oh, I don't think so. Even when I wrote the script, I wrote it with my school's layout in mind. bios: The exact geography of it really helps. Asanda: But just when we had to look at the costs, and how much it would take — also, the time we wanted to shoot, my school was writing exams. In my mind I was like, oh, it's perfect, because we can use one of the boarding houses to house all the crew and everything. But it's just too expensive, and there's no film infrastructure in the Eastern Cape really. We'd have to bring all the gear, all the crew. It's just way too costly. bios: So you did the short film for DIFF — and then how did you develop the feature? Did you have a producer already? Asanda: Cait Pansegrouw, at the time, yeah. The short was actually made in the middle of developing the feature — it was part of that process for me, to develop a few characters and work through the dynamic between Luthando and her mom. bios: So where did you and Cait become a team? I'm thinking about this from the point of view of a younger filmmaker who wants to make a film and doesn't know where the fuck to start. Asanda: I was an intern at Cait’s production company, then I worked as a junior producer, so we'd already worked together. I was also a project manager for the Realness Screenwriters Residency, which Cait was a mentor for, so she already knew I had an interest in screenwriting. Then in 2020 I quit both jobs to pursue directing and writing full time. I came to her with this idea, and she was like, "Okay, cool. I love your vibe. I can see you're disciplined. I like your point of view. So let's do this together." We've literally been in it together from the get go. bios: And then how did you finance the film? Did you have NFVF money? Asanda: The NFVF came in with post support, and funding for marketing and distribution. bios: So your short Mirror Mirror helped you get the funding? Asanda: Yes. Mirror Mirror was financed with PESP money — we had a budget of like 250k and shot it in my apartment for two days. It got into TIFF and Berlin and all these places, and we used that for pitching and finance. We got into the DFM Pitch and Finance Forum and I ended up winning the award for best feature film pitch, plus another award that basically sent us to FAME Week Africa for free. Then we pitched to Amazon and got the short film in front of them, which resulted in a pre-sale for the feature. bios: And that's a producer! Asanda: Yeah, and the financing wasn't easy because we went to the broadcasters and they were like, nah. A lot of them said it wasn't relevant. I was like, are gay kids still having issues today? When I checked the news that morning, a 17-year-old killed themselves because they were bullied by the teacher and their classmates. So yes, it's very relevant. bios: Like the Bishops thing. A little bit relevant. Asanda: Yeah, and even just the way the film addresses racism, every year there's an incident. Every year. I think this weekend somewhere in Cape Town a rugby game was stopped because one of the players called a black player the K word. bios: Ah, Jesus. So, yeah... K-bombing. These things are relevant. They don't stop being relevant just because they stop being marketable. Asanda: Exactly. bios: That scene with the little hearts being held up — the analogue hearts? Asanda: Yeah. bios: You get asked about that a lot, I think. Asanda: Not directly. People are more interested in just the general style. bios: Because there's that one heart on the side that's slightly off in terms of the balance of the frame, sorry. Anyway, that moment, did it come out like it was in your head? Asanda: It came out the way I wrote it. The fun part, at least for me, was that the art department were the ones to figure out how it was done practically. I'm not someone who understands symmetry and perfection — it's okay to have things a little bit off. I'm not trying to be Wes Anderson. bios: You know, Fuck Wes Anderson. He was desperate to get Pauline Kael’s opinion on Rushmore. So, he tracked her down in retirement and organised a private screening so he could get her critical reaction. She came out the cinema and told him, "I genuinely don't know what to make of this movie." Asanda: That's also why I'm like, don't ever meet your idols. Don't even ask them. I met Cheryl Dunye in Berlin. She didn't have time to watch my film, so she asked me to send her the link, and I to this day have not. bios: Somebody who honestly engages with film on that level is not going to be a dick about it. They might tell you something you need to know. Asanda: True. Yeah, that's very true. Actually, maybe I will. bios: Exactly. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Asanda: Very true. bios: So you're busy doing the press tour. Have you been into cinemas and watched young people watch this movie without knowing that you're there? Asanda: No, not yet. I might do it — we've got a Bertha House run-out screening tonight in Khayelitsha, and I'm planning on going to see the reactions and for the Q&As. I'm looking forward to it. But no, I haven't, because I've watched it with festival audiences. bios: Watching it at a festival with people who are engaged with film is very different to watching it with a bunch of kids. Asanda: Yeah, definitely. I think it'll be fun, just sitting in the back. But also, I'm in the film a little bit and I cringe so much when I see it. I'm like, why did I do it? I was like, let me do what Taika Waititi does. Never again. bios: It'll happen again. You'll have to stand in for an actor at some point in your life. So, one last thing: the girls are meant to be the mean girls, and then they turn out to be really sweet. Asanda: Yeah. bios: I felt this moment of — ah. And there's a lot you do with tropes — it's a tropey setup, and you just refuse to do the trope. There's no great Say Anything moment in it. Asanda: Yeah, yeah. bios: I think that's valuable because it's real life. Asanda: Yeah, and honestly, that's my experience. Everyone thinks the group of black girls is going to be bitchy and mean. It's like, nah guys, we're just literally trying to survive this environment until we get out. --- Addendum: After the Bertha screening in Khayelitsha, Sandulela sent us this voice note: “It was really amazing, to be honest. I kind of had tears in my eyes because just, like, hearing, like, people laughing, it was just really great. It made me feel really proud of myself to know that, like, that the humour and the resonance not only translated, like, yes, at the film festival, but also, like, with local audiences the way that I had hoped it would. Yeah, I just felt, like, really happy and emotional about it.” ----- · →I Don't Really Know What A Glockenspiel Wants]]>
an interview with Sandulela Asanda

Sandulela Asanda went to an all-girls boarding school, and has now made a feature about going to an all-girls boarding school. Black Burns Fast is out in cinemas countrywide as of last Friday, after a massive festival run that included DIFF last year. Following our review, we tried to figure out how she got from Mirror Mirror, her DIFF-winning short film, to screening her first feature in so many cinemas and doing so many goddamn interviews.

bios: What's the one question you keep getting asked in interviews that you're so tired of?

Asanda: I'd say the meaning of the title. Because I thought it was self-explanatory.

bios: Yeah, I saw that, and I was like, “Why are they asking that?”

Asanda: A lot of the foreign publications I've spoken to ask me, “Is South Africa really like that? Are white people really like that?” And I'm always just like, okay guys… I get it. It was interesting to see how little people knew about modern South African social relations, but I guess we don't have a lot of modern work that speaks to that.

bios: But that's just Hollywood. The world's going to perceive us the way the world's going to perceive us.

Asanda: Very much so. But it was also clear to me that people are hungry to know what's happening now. I knew instinctively there was a need for the story, and that there'd be an audience. But experiencing it now is a different thing.

bios: A lot of reviews position it as a queer story, and I think that shuts other people out who actually need to see it.

Asanda: It's a double-edged sword, right? I made this film to contribute to the queer canon with a film that's light, that's positive.

bios: Yeah.

Asanda: We seldom get that, especially when it's an African narrative too. I did that purposefully, but at the same time, I'm having important political conversations in that film that I want wider audiences to be part of. But at the end of the day, I made this for my younger self who didn't have access to this kind of film.

bios: Well it's not Skoonheid, that's for sure.

Asanda: Yeah.

bios: There is a lot of hand-wringing in gay cinema...

Asanda: Yeah, the kids need to know it's chill, that it can be happy on the other side. Especially the way Luthando and her mother's relationship ends up, it's more of a limbo. It's not fully acceptance, but it's also not not acceptance.

bios: And that's just the reality sometimes.

Asanda: People need to see that in-between. Because more often than not, that is the reality.

bios: There's no big resolution at the end. They're just friends, and the relationship with the mother is just where it is, and the relationship with Jodie is just...that's where they are.

Asanda: Yeah, and I did that on purpose, really, because they're in high school. So much is going to change about them. They're going to grow so much. Maybe they'll still end up being best friends. I hope they do. And I know it's funny me saying that because I'm the one who kind of is in control of that, but—

bios: Really? Because you said... you put the film out into the world and...

Asanda: Yeah, exactly. People can run with where they think the future is happening. Even the actresses have their own ideas about what happens next. They've been pitching me a feature. It's funny to hear them do it, and it's also great because they're just that excited. I don't know if that'll be what I'm doing.

bios: But you've given them the licence to imagine.

Asanda: Yeah, and I'm really proud of that. I'm really proud of that.

bios: There's a line in the film where a teacher says, “It's taboo, chaps. It's taboo.” I love that — because I've read somewhere you've got a background in economics and law?

Asanda: Yes, right.

bios: For me, that line is really about how much law and economics govern the way we move through systems. I know it's comedy, but does that background play into how the characters move through and negotiate the school system in the film?

Asanda: Oh, definitely. It also informs my understanding of the film and the characters. I can't not think about those things. And also of Rhodes Must Fall — I was in varsity when it was all going down, so I'm very informed about how these systems and structures work. And I do bring that into my work.

bios: What I like about that — because I can see it happening in the work, and I can see you upending it in certain places — is that you have such a light touch about it. You don't make a speech.

Asanda: Yeah, because you know what I've learned? That's part of why I really wanted this film to show in South Africa. Because you know what? Sometimes South Africans are so used to being lectured to, and for us to really listen to things, we have to laugh first.

bios: There's that moment where she makes the comment about apartheid, and then gets kicked out of class for it. That's essentially a joke that becomes quite serious. But she ends up walking down the corridor kind of dismissing it. So you contain something in there — the reversal of not being able to speak about these things in certain situations — and you just handle it lightly. I think that's really valuable, that we can dismiss these things.

Asanda: Yeah, and especially in these schools, no one wants to talk about these things. I don't know — my brain is saying people take it too seriously. I do think it is a thing to be too serious about, for it to be taken seriously. But the problem is that there are people carrying it as if they were there then, and as a result they don't want to engage at all when you want to talk about the outcomes and how they affect us now. Whereas we can't have these conversations without getting personal, and acknowledging — yes, maybe you weren't actively part of the past, maybe you weren't born yet, but we're still dealing with the effects.

bios: There's heavy stuff that happened in the past and heavy stuff happening now, but… okay, so I was reading this local culture magazine written by academics, everything they say is pertinent, but it's so opaque in its heaviness that no one outside of that circle is going to read it.

Asanda: That's why I love film, because it's a more accessible way to have these conversations. People are more willing to watch it. But then again, like you said, if you make it heavy, it's going to keep getting heavier. So it's about being smart about how you approach it.

bios: I like that the film is smart in that it's not smart. You've taken all these issues and given them to teenagers. And you can't really argue with teenagers.

Asanda: No, you can't.

bios: So you went to a boarding school, right — did you shoot the film at your boarding school?

Asanda: Oh no, no, no, no.

bios: That's disappointing.

Asanda: You know what the problem is? My boarding school is in the middle of the Eastern Cape, and very far. You shoot in a different province and that adds millions of rands to your budget, and the film commission won't give you that money from here and that money from there. So we actually shot at three different schools in Cape Town — Rustenburg Girls' High School, SACS, and Sans Souci.

bios: Oof! The trifecta of boarding schools.

Asanda: Yeah. Bishops was out because everything is all white.

bios: Yes, and they won't fly a pride flag.

Asanda: Exactly. They wouldn't let us in, probably.

bios: So did you at any point want to shoot at your old boarding school?

Asanda: Oh yeah, that was my initial desire. And then when it came to putting the costs down, I was like, oh, I don't think so. Even when I wrote the script, I wrote it with my school's layout in mind.

bios: The exact geography of it really helps.

Asanda: But just when we had to look at the costs, and how much it would take — also, the time we wanted to shoot, my school was writing exams. In my mind I was like, oh, it's perfect, because we can use one of the boarding houses to house all the crew and everything. But it's just too expensive, and there's no film infrastructure in the Eastern Cape really. We'd have to bring all the gear, all the crew. It's just way too costly.

bios: So you did the short film for DIFF — and then how did you develop the feature? Did you have a producer already?

Asanda: Cait Pansegrouw, at the time, yeah. The short was actually made in the middle of developing the feature — it was part of that process for me, to develop a few characters and work through the dynamic between Luthando and her mom.

bios: So where did you and Cait become a team? I'm thinking about this from the point of view of a younger filmmaker who wants to make a film and doesn't know where the fuck to start.

Asanda: I was an intern at Cait’s production company, then I worked as a junior producer, so we'd already worked together. I was also a project manager for the Realness Screenwriters Residency, which Cait was a mentor for, so she already knew I had an interest in screenwriting. Then in 2020 I quit both jobs to pursue directing and writing full time. I came to her with this idea, and she was like, “Okay, cool. I love your vibe. I can see you're disciplined. I like your point of view. So let's do this together.” We've literally been in it together from the get go.

bios: And then how did you finance the film? Did you have NFVF money?

Asanda: The NFVF came in with post support, and funding for marketing and distribution.

bios: So your short Mirror Mirror helped you get the funding?

Asanda: Yes. Mirror Mirror was financed with PESP money — we had a budget of like 250k and shot it in my apartment for two days. It got into TIFF and Berlin and all these places, and we used that for pitching and finance. We got into the DFM Pitch and Finance Forum and I ended up winning the award for best feature film pitch, plus another award that basically sent us to FAME Week Africa for free. Then we pitched to Amazon and got the short film in front of them, which resulted in a pre-sale for the feature.

bios: And that's a producer!

Asanda: Yeah, and the financing wasn't easy because we went to the broadcasters and they were like, nah. A lot of them said it wasn't relevant. I was like, are gay kids still having issues today? When I checked the news that morning, a 17-year-old killed themselves because they were bullied by the teacher and their classmates. So yes, it's very relevant.

bios: Like the Bishops thing. A little bit relevant.

Asanda: Yeah, and even just the way the film addresses racism, every year there's an incident. Every year. I think this weekend somewhere in Cape Town a rugby game was stopped because one of the players called a black player the K word.

bios: Ah, Jesus. So, yeah... K-bombing. These things are relevant. They don't stop being relevant just because they stop being marketable.

Asanda: Exactly.

bios: That scene with the little hearts being held up — the analogue hearts?

Asanda: Yeah.

bios: You get asked about that a lot, I think.

Asanda: Not directly. People are more interested in just the general style.

bios: Because there's that one heart on the side that's slightly off in terms of the balance of the frame, sorry. Anyway, that moment, did it come out like it was in your head?

Asanda: It came out the way I wrote it. The fun part, at least for me, was that the art department were the ones to figure out how it was done practically. I'm not someone who understands symmetry and perfection — it's okay to have things a little bit off. I'm not trying to be Wes Anderson.

bios: You know, Fuck Wes Anderson. He was desperate to get Pauline Kael’s opinion on Rushmore. So, he tracked her down in retirement and organised a private screening so he could get her critical reaction. She came out the cinema and told him, “I genuinely don't know what to make of this movie.”

Asanda: That's also why I'm like, don't ever meet your idols. Don't even ask them. I met Cheryl Dunye in Berlin. She didn't have time to watch my film, so she asked me to send her the link, and I to this day have not.

bios: Somebody who honestly engages with film on that level is not going to be a dick about it. They might tell you something you need to know.

Asanda: True. Yeah, that's very true. Actually, maybe I will.

bios: Exactly. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Asanda: Very true.

bios: So you're busy doing the press tour. Have you been into cinemas and watched young people watch this movie without knowing that you're there?

Asanda: No, not yet. I might do it — we've got a Bertha House run-out screening tonight in Khayelitsha, and I'm planning on going to see the reactions and for the Q&As. I'm looking forward to it. But no, I haven't, because I've watched it with festival audiences.

bios: Watching it at a festival with people who are engaged with film is very different to watching it with a bunch of kids.

Asanda: Yeah, definitely. I think it'll be fun, just sitting in the back. But also, I'm in the film a little bit and I cringe so much when I see it. I'm like, why did I do it? I was like, let me do what Taika Waititi does. Never again.

bios: It'll happen again. You'll have to stand in for an actor at some point in your life. So, one last thing: the girls are meant to be the mean girls, and then they turn out to be really sweet.

Asanda: Yeah.

bios: I felt this moment of — ah. And there's a lot you do with tropes — it's a tropey setup, and you just refuse to do the trope. There's no great Say Anything moment in it.

Asanda: Yeah, yeah.

bios: I think that's valuable because it's real life.

Asanda: Yeah, and honestly, that's my experience. Everyone thinks the group of black girls is going to be bitchy and mean. It's like, nah guys, we're just literally trying to survive this environment until we get out.

Addendum: After the Bertha screening in Khayelitsha, Sandulela sent us this voice note:

“It was really amazing, to be honest. I kind of had tears in my eyes because just, like, hearing, like, people laughing, it was just really great. It made me feel really proud of myself to know that, like, that the humour and the resonance not only translated, like, yes, at the film festival, but also, like, with local audiences the way that I had hoped it would. Yeah, I just felt, like, really happy and emotional about it.”

· →I Don't Really Know What A Glockenspiel Wants

]]> https://bios.net.za/its-not-not-acceptance Thu, 06 Aug 2026 06:15:38 +0000 I Don't Really Know What A Glockenspiel Wants https://bios.net.za/i-dont-really-know-what-a-glockenspiel-wants?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[--- An Interview with Guy Buttery --- Guy Buttery was recently nominated for three SAMAs for Orchestrations — Album of the Year, Best Instrumental and Best Engineered. The album, released last year after 12 years in the making, took shape across a dozen countries, involving different orchestras, string players and musicians along the way. This weekend he returns to the Hilton Arts Festival with multi-instrumentalist Quintin Song. !--more-- --- Bios: The first thing I noticed listening to this album is how different it feels from your other stuff — like every track has this intention, this driving force behind it. I'll never accuse you of being structured, but this feels like you're heading somewhere specific in each track. Buttery: Yeah, man. I mean, when you work on something this long, the vision becomes very clear. What I will also say is, what was that film that Terrence Malick made where a lot of people didn't make the cut? The Thin Red Line. Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney didn't make the final cut. A lot of people recorded parts for this record and ended up not landing up on the album. The vision of it was so clear after such a long period of time. I think there's also a lot to be said for the fact that when you're working with orchestral musicians, classical musicians, there was an improvisational nature in some of the playing, but 99% of it was scored and rescored. There was a lot of back and forth with the arranger, Chris Letcher. There was certainly improvisation from me, but the orchestral parts were very much scored with great intention. You kind of have to when there's a 52-piece orchestra. Bios: Letcher is a genius. That early 2000s Van Der Want/Letcher album is still etched in my mind. Buttery: I think that record you're talking about was called Bignity. If it was 2002, I think they had one before that called Low Riding, which was late '90s, around '98, if I'm not mistaken. Bios: How much did you know about scoring before going into this, and how much of it was just you learning a whole new way of making music? A 52-piece orchestra versus you on stage with your sitar — those are two completely different headspaces. iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3yfNxCOkxrs" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen/iframe Buttery: Working with an orchestra versus working in a solo environment, they're sort of incomparable. That video was filmed when we started this project, and it was simultaneously incredibly exhilarating — there's just so much power behind you — and also really, really terrifying. I've done a lot of concerts, and I'm not normally too nervous, but this was different. It was like, "I never asked to be born," you know? It was just terrible. But also really empowering. We rehearsed on this very stage where that video was captured. Chris was there for the rehearsals, and we ran through the piece. Afterwards he ran onto the stage changing the timpani parts and the bass clarinet parts, asking, "What about this?" Just insane imagination and ability to isolate 52 different voices — 53 including my own. He's an amazing man whose voice on this record is very loud and very clear. It was a privilege to work with him. This project went on for so long. I could put out a ten-album box set. Bios: When you started, did you know you'd end up on stage with a 52-piece orchestra? Buttery: No, it was actually more the other way around. One of the reasons the project took so long was, I'm afraid, the very boring answer: mostly funding. It's just a very expensive project to get going. That video was the very first time — it was just a one-off concert, three songs with the orchestra that night. Then we did it again, and a few more songs were added, and then a few more. I did it with a string quartet for a while, it got transposed down, then there was a different orchestra. Then I got the Standard Bank Young Artist thing, and more songs were added, and the project just kept growing. In my head, the very first time, I was just playing three songs with the KZNPO, and that was it. I never thought it would happen again. So the idea of recording came quite a bit later. There's a dark story there too, because I ended up rerecording my parts three times for this record. The project just kept changing and transforming into something different. But to answer your question, it evolved organically. Bios: How do you even have the balls to ask the KZN Philharmonic to sit down and record an album with you? That's a massive ask. Buttery: Ha! Indeed. But not just KZNPO, many orchestras and string players were involved in the end. There were string players from all over the world — a lot from the Eastern Cape, a lot from Edinburgh, and others in the US and India. It was recorded all over the place, really. Bios: So now it's all transposed and written down — could any orchestra pick up the sheet music and perform this? Does it move beyond you once it's on paper, versus when it's just the recording? Buttery: Totally, man. I have an agent in the US, and one of the projects was pitched with orchestra, either symphonic or philharmonic, so it's completely playable by anyone with the sheet music. The one thing missing is my parts, because they were never transcribed. I was always present, so it wasn't necessary. But that doesn't mean it can't be done — that part has just been left open. Another interesting thing is that a lot of the arrangements were shaped so beautifully that they stand on their own. In the final mix, when we muted my guitar parts, the orchestral parts were just gorgeous by themselves. There were sections on the record where we removed my part completely because the orchestra was singing so beautifully on its own. So yeah, I like the idea of the work living on without me — if anyone is mad enough to go and play it. Bios: How do you perform this if you need 52 other musicians every time? Do the songs become a fixed point in time? Buttery: Yeah. You know, for me it's a project that comes back around. It picks up, comes my way, leaves me, and then returns again. I was actually supposed to perform the work in Prince Albert, but that was unfortunately cancelled quite late. So it does keep reappearing. There are orchestral programmes in South Africa where I occasionally get included, and if I was actively pushing it, I could probably go around and perform these works more often. I'd be open to that. I guess I just have so many projects on the go that it's one of many. In some ways, a lot of this work only really existed in recorded form, and that's fine by me. Some pieces were never performed live, while others were performed live but never made it onto the record. So there are different worlds there. But for me, just being able to do it, work with these guys, and dive into a project like this — in a way I wouldn't have been able to otherwise — was really special. Working with all these wonderful players and finally having this work recorded was always the end goal. Bios: Did anything change in your approach to music through this whole process? Buttery: One of the things I learned sounds like a cliché, but this project was really, really hard to get together. Just keeping the momentum going was difficult. There were many times where I wanted to throw in the towel and thought, "This is too big a mountain to climb. It's never going to happen." And then a little opportunity would come along — "Hey, why don't you come do this thing with the Eastern Cape Philharmonic?" — and I'd think, "Okay, cool, maybe we can add one more tune." And suddenly it would start moving again. There were so many moments where it felt impossible. So what I'm getting at here is — what's the cliché? You fill in the blanks — but it's something like, "Good things come to those who suffer innumerable pain," you know? I'd be lying if I said it wasn't very, very tricky just trying to get this thing going. I was talking to a friend once, saying, "I can't believe I've been working on this for 12 years. It's killing me." And he flipped it around and said, "Guy, how cool that you've been able to work on one thing for so long." Obviously I was doing other things in between, but this project was always there — sometimes on the back burner, sometimes on the front burner. It shaped a third of my life, for better or worse. Another thing I learned was how valuable it is to work with people who are really experienced and great at what they do. I mixed this record on my own for about three years, and eventually sent it to Simon "Fuzzy" Ratcliffe, one of the best engineers on the continent. He listened and said, "Nope, Guy, you fucked it up. You got it wrong. We're going to have to do this again." I said, "No, I've been mixing this for three years. I'm not doing it again." He said, "Yes, you are. You're flying down to Cape Town and we're remixing the whole thing." And he was 100% right. Maybe I didn't need to spend three years learning how to mix an orchestra. I've mixed a lot of records, but I don't know how to handle a viola. I don't really know what a glockenspiel wants. I certainly didn't know how to work with a bass clarinet — but he did. So what I'm saying is, if you can work with people who have incredible craft and skill sets, let them do what they're good at. Focus on the guitar, Guy. Bios: Focus on the guitar, that's your takeaway? So — this weekend's gig, sounds like there's a lot more improvisation in that performance. Buttery: The concert this weekend and the orchestrations have very little in common, really. There's some crossover — I think there's one song we do as a duo — but it's a totally different animal. Quintin Song is amazing, man. It's almost annoying how many instruments he plays so well. I remember someone asking me, "Oh, are you collaborating with this guy Quintin Song? What instrument does he play?" And I just said, "Yes," because what is his instrument? Is he a guitar player? A drummer? A flautist? Does he play bass? The santur? The oud? He plays everything. He plays a lot of wind instruments with me, and we've written some beautiful arrangements specifically for this duo, alongside things from my previous recorded work — my repertoire, whatever the word is. But yeah, it's a totally different animal. There's lots of improvisation, lots of space to breathe. I think that's where we really shine as a duo. It's a very open-ended thing. You know, to try and channel the abyss. Bios: And the SAMA nomination? Buttery: Fuzzy and I are also up for a nomination for Best Engineer, which I was really happy about. So the record got three nominations, one of which is Album of the Year, which is kind of mad in my head. It's not an obvious Album of the Year contender. Bios: Album of the year, bro — you gonna pull a Brenda Fassie and storm the stage if you don't win? Also, I can't leave the "best of" thing alone — don't worry, Depeche Mode's 81–85 was only the first eighth of their career. Buttery: No, I mean, I kind of appreciated it. I think what I was trying to say with that "best of" comment was just how long it took to make this record. A lot of those tracks hadn't been released because they lived in this orchestral world, and not really in any other form. But yeah, it certainly took its sweet time to get the whole thing down. Having all those tracks compiled together might have made it seem like a best-of rescored for orchestra. Joni Mitchell did something similar in 2000, taking a whole bunch of her songs and scoring them for orchestra. But that wasn't the case here. This was just because it took me 12 years. Bios: There's this thing on the record — the sound of a finger sliding across the string, you can feel the texture of it. Do you think about that as a musician? Buttery: Yeah, man, I totally think about that kind of stuff — string squeaks and that kind of texture. I'm mostly partial to the humanness of it. I'm all for the realness of it. Unless it becomes distracting, in which case you might clean something up. I don't remember doing any of that in these sessions — I'm pretty sure we didn't. This new recording project I'm working on right now is actually the antithesis of this. It's leaning hard into the realness of a recording. It was recorded in a very reverberant space. I mic'd the instrument twice, but I mic'd the room three times. I'm leaning into bats and cows — it was recorded in a rural church — so I'm very partial to that kind of thing. That's right up my street. I think the older I get, the more power that stuff has. The texture you're talking about — hearing the string, hearing the finger sliding — yes! That's what we want, right? Isn't that it? Bios: How do you even record a bat? Aren't they above the range of human hearing? Buttery: I swear there are bats on my next record. Lots of them! --- Orchestrations on Bandcamp Tickets for this weekend's Hilton Arts Fest gig ---- It's Not Not Acceptance← · · →The Passage Of Time Is Not A Story ]]>
An Interview with Guy Buttery

Guy Buttery was recently nominated for three SAMAs for Orchestrations — Album of the Year, Best Instrumental and Best Engineered. The album, released last year after 12 years in the making, took shape across a dozen countries, involving different orchestras, string players and musicians along the way. This weekend he returns to the Hilton Arts Festival with multi-instrumentalist Quintin Song.

Bios: The first thing I noticed listening to this album is how different it feels from your other stuff — like every track has this intention, this driving force behind it. I'll never accuse you of being structured, but this feels like you're heading somewhere specific in each track.

Buttery: Yeah, man. I mean, when you work on something this long, the vision becomes very clear. What I will also say is, what was that film that Terrence Malick made where a lot of people didn't make the cut? The Thin Red Line. Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney didn't make the final cut. A lot of people recorded parts for this record and ended up not landing up on the album. The vision of it was so clear after such a long period of time. I think there's also a lot to be said for the fact that when you're working with orchestral musicians, classical musicians, there was an improvisational nature in some of the playing, but 99% of it was scored and rescored. There was a lot of back and forth with the arranger, Chris Letcher. There was certainly improvisation from me, but the orchestral parts were very much scored with great intention. You kind of have to when there's a 52-piece orchestra.

Bios: Letcher is a genius. That early 2000s Van Der Want/Letcher album is still etched in my mind.

Buttery: I think that record you're talking about was called Bignity. If it was 2002, I think they had one before that called Low Riding, which was late '90s, around '98, if I'm not mistaken.

Bios: How much did you know about scoring before going into this, and how much of it was just you learning a whole new way of making music? A 52-piece orchestra versus you on stage with your sitar — those are two completely different headspaces.

Buttery: Working with an orchestra versus working in a solo environment, they're sort of incomparable. That video was filmed when we started this project, and it was simultaneously incredibly exhilarating — there's just so much power behind you — and also really, really terrifying. I've done a lot of concerts, and I'm not normally too nervous, but this was different. It was like, “I never asked to be born,” you know? It was just terrible. But also really empowering. We rehearsed on this very stage where that video was captured. Chris was there for the rehearsals, and we ran through the piece. Afterwards he ran onto the stage changing the timpani parts and the bass clarinet parts, asking, “What about this?” Just insane imagination and ability to isolate 52 different voices — 53 including my own. He's an amazing man whose voice on this record is very loud and very clear. It was a privilege to work with him. This project went on for so long. I could put out a ten-album box set.

Bios: When you started, did you know you'd end up on stage with a 52-piece orchestra?

Buttery: No, it was actually more the other way around. One of the reasons the project took so long was, I'm afraid, the very boring answer: mostly funding. It's just a very expensive project to get going. That video was the very first time — it was just a one-off concert, three songs with the orchestra that night. Then we did it again, and a few more songs were added, and then a few more. I did it with a string quartet for a while, it got transposed down, then there was a different orchestra. Then I got the Standard Bank Young Artist thing, and more songs were added, and the project just kept growing.

In my head, the very first time, I was just playing three songs with the KZNPO, and that was it. I never thought it would happen again. So the idea of recording came quite a bit later. There's a dark story there too, because I ended up rerecording my parts three times for this record. The project just kept changing and transforming into something different. But to answer your question, it evolved organically.

Bios: How do you even have the balls to ask the KZN Philharmonic to sit down and record an album with you? That's a massive ask.

Buttery: Ha! Indeed. But not just KZNPO, many orchestras and string players were involved in the end. There were string players from all over the world — a lot from the Eastern Cape, a lot from Edinburgh, and others in the US and India. It was recorded all over the place, really.

Bios: So now it's all transposed and written down — could any orchestra pick up the sheet music and perform this? Does it move beyond you once it's on paper, versus when it's just the recording?

Buttery: Totally, man. I have an agent in the US, and one of the projects was pitched with orchestra, either symphonic or philharmonic, so it's completely playable by anyone with the sheet music. The one thing missing is my parts, because they were never transcribed. I was always present, so it wasn't necessary. But that doesn't mean it can't be done — that part has just been left open. Another interesting thing is that a lot of the arrangements were shaped so beautifully that they stand on their own. In the final mix, when we muted my guitar parts, the orchestral parts were just gorgeous by themselves. There were sections on the record where we removed my part completely because the orchestra was singing so beautifully on its own. So yeah, I like the idea of the work living on without me — if anyone is mad enough to go and play it.

Bios: How do you perform this if you need 52 other musicians every time? Do the songs become a fixed point in time?

Buttery: Yeah. You know, for me it's a project that comes back around. It picks up, comes my way, leaves me, and then returns again. I was actually supposed to perform the work in Prince Albert, but that was unfortunately cancelled quite late. So it does keep reappearing. There are orchestral programmes in South Africa where I occasionally get included, and if I was actively pushing it, I could probably go around and perform these works more often. I'd be open to that. I guess I just have so many projects on the go that it's one of many. In some ways, a lot of this work only really existed in recorded form, and that's fine by me. Some pieces were never performed live, while others were performed live but never made it onto the record. So there are different worlds there. But for me, just being able to do it, work with these guys, and dive into a project like this — in a way I wouldn't have been able to otherwise — was really special. Working with all these wonderful players and finally having this work recorded was always the end goal.

Bios: Did anything change in your approach to music through this whole process?

Buttery: One of the things I learned sounds like a cliché, but this project was really, really hard to get together. Just keeping the momentum going was difficult.

There were many times where I wanted to throw in the towel and thought, “This is too big a mountain to climb. It's never going to happen.” And then a little opportunity would come along — “Hey, why don't you come do this thing with the Eastern Cape Philharmonic?” — and I'd think, “Okay, cool, maybe we can add one more tune.” And suddenly it would start moving again. There were so many moments where it felt impossible. So what I'm getting at here is — what's the cliché? You fill in the blanks — but it's something like, “Good things come to those who suffer innumerable pain,” you know? I'd be lying if I said it wasn't very, very tricky just trying to get this thing going. I was talking to a friend once, saying, “I can't believe I've been working on this for 12 years. It's killing me.” And he flipped it around and said, “Guy, how cool that you've been able to work on one thing for so long.” Obviously I was doing other things in between, but this project was always there — sometimes on the back burner, sometimes on the front burner. It shaped a third of my life, for better or worse.

Another thing I learned was how valuable it is to work with people who are really experienced and great at what they do. I mixed this record on my own for about three years, and eventually sent it to Simon “Fuzzy” Ratcliffe, one of the best engineers on the continent. He listened and said, “Nope, Guy, you fucked it up. You got it wrong. We're going to have to do this again.” I said, “No, I've been mixing this for three years. I'm not doing it again.” He said, “Yes, you are. You're flying down to Cape Town and we're remixing the whole thing.” And he was 100% right. Maybe I didn't need to spend three years learning how to mix an orchestra. I've mixed a lot of records, but I don't know how to handle a viola. I don't really know what a glockenspiel wants. I certainly didn't know how to work with a bass clarinet — but he did. So what I'm saying is, if you can work with people who have incredible craft and skill sets, let them do what they're good at. Focus on the guitar, Guy.

Bios: Focus on the guitar, that's your takeaway? So — this weekend's gig, sounds like there's a lot more improvisation in that performance.

Buttery: The concert this weekend and the orchestrations have very little in common, really. There's some crossover — I think there's one song we do as a duo — but it's a totally different animal. Quintin Song is amazing, man. It's almost annoying how many instruments he plays so well. I remember someone asking me, “Oh, are you collaborating with this guy Quintin Song? What instrument does he play?” And I just said, “Yes,” because what is his instrument? Is he a guitar player? A drummer? A flautist? Does he play bass? The santur? The oud? He plays everything. He plays a lot of wind instruments with me, and we've written some beautiful arrangements specifically for this duo, alongside things from my previous recorded work — my repertoire, whatever the word is. But yeah, it's a totally different animal. There's lots of improvisation, lots of space to breathe. I think that's where we really shine as a duo. It's a very open-ended thing. You know, to try and channel the abyss.

Bios: And the SAMA nomination?

Buttery: Fuzzy and I are also up for a nomination for Best Engineer, which I was really happy about. So the record got three nominations, one of which is Album of the Year, which is kind of mad in my head. It's not an obvious Album of the Year contender.

Bios: Album of the year, bro — you gonna pull a Brenda Fassie and storm the stage if you don't win? Also, I can't leave the “best of” thing alone — don't worry, Depeche Mode's 81–85 was only the first eighth of their career.

Buttery: No, I mean, I kind of appreciated it. I think what I was trying to say with that “best of” comment was just how long it took to make this record. A lot of those tracks hadn't been released because they lived in this orchestral world, and not really in any other form. But yeah, it certainly took its sweet time to get the whole thing down. Having all those tracks compiled together might have made it seem like a best-of rescored for orchestra. Joni Mitchell did something similar in 2000, taking a whole bunch of her songs and scoring them for orchestra. But that wasn't the case here. This was just because it took me 12 years.

Bios: There's this thing on the record — the sound of a finger sliding across the string, you can feel the texture of it. Do you think about that as a musician?

Buttery: Yeah, man, I totally think about that kind of stuff — string squeaks and that kind of texture. I'm mostly partial to the humanness of it. I'm all for the realness of it. Unless it becomes distracting, in which case you might clean something up. I don't remember doing any of that in these sessions — I'm pretty sure we didn't. This new recording project I'm working on right now is actually the antithesis of this. It's leaning hard into the realness of a recording. It was recorded in a very reverberant space. I mic'd the instrument twice, but I mic'd the room three times. I'm leaning into bats and cows — it was recorded in a rural church — so I'm very partial to that kind of thing. That's right up my street. I think the older I get, the more power that stuff has. The texture you're talking about — hearing the string, hearing the finger sliding — yes! That's what we want, right? Isn't that it?

Bios: How do you even record a bat? Aren't they above the range of human hearing?

Buttery: I swear there are bats on my next record. Lots of them!

Orchestrations on Bandcamp

Tickets for this weekend's Hilton Arts Fest gig

It's Not Not Acceptance← · · →The Passage Of Time Is Not A Story

]]> https://bios.net.za/i-dont-really-know-what-a-glockenspiel-wants Mon, 03 Aug 2026 22:21:49 +0000 DIFF26 | From Dust We Spin | dir: Julia Jansch | 85mins https://bios.net.za/diff26-from-dust-we-spin-dir-julia-jansch-82mins?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[DIFF26 | From Dust We Spin | dir: Julia Jansch | 85mins --- SC8 | Friday 31st July | 7pm --- Waaabap-bap-bap. A story as old as time. Sometimes you just want to donut until your tyres come off, and the government won't let you. !--more-- From Dust We Spin is a much bigger film than just that. Julia Jansch manages to tell the story of all the intersecting issues around a father just wanting to find a pitch where his daughter can pull an ag, without making it about all the intersecting issues. Bookended with a spinning pro reciting a sort of street poetry about the sport, its history and future is such a Cape Town move, it's impossible not to love the makeshift nature of the whole sport and everything that that makeshift nature says about what it means to live on the flats. Logan is a young girl from the plein, her father wants her to spin, to compete in the car spinning events that have long been illegal in South Africa, her mother is worried about safety. The spinning fraternity is working toward legitimacy, the government is making promises. A father just wants his daughter to find an outlet for her frustrations, and spinning is what he knows. Spinning as a sport struggles with safety issues, and having regulated pitches could help with this. The Department of Sports, Arts and Culture is shown to be doing something, but nothing really comes of this narratively. Logan's father confronts the organisers of legal events in one scene, frustrated with the time it takes to pull an event together, yet there is no real accumulation of frustration, at times coming across as helicopter filmmaking. Everything builds to that final event, you seldom feel the weight of the systemic oppression around this sport. But it is visible in every frame. To an outside viewer, this might feel thin, but its hyperlocal nature is the very heart of it. From Dust We Spin avoids all the traps that come with trying to explain this shit to outsiders. There are two moments in From Dust We Spin that are pure storytelling craft. The cut directly after the most epic slow-motion spin: Eddie Rasta leaping off the running board of his car mid-donut, enveloped in smoke, like some ancient god returning victorious. And then at the film's climax, Busby Berkeley meets the Cape Flats, one of the most earned top shots in recent film history. Waaabap-bap-bap. --- ← · DIFF26· →Review | Who Is Still Alive]]> DIFF26 | From Dust We Spin | dir: Julia Jansch | 85mins

SC8 | Friday 31st July | 7pm

Waaabap-bap-bap. A story as old as time. Sometimes you just want to donut until your tyres come off, and the government won't let you.

From Dust We Spin is a much bigger film than just that. Julia Jansch manages to tell the story of all the intersecting issues around a father just wanting to find a pitch where his daughter can pull an ag, without making it about all the intersecting issues.

Bookended with a spinning pro reciting a sort of street poetry about the sport, its history and future is such a Cape Town move, it's impossible not to love the makeshift nature of the whole sport and everything that that makeshift nature says about what it means to live on the flats.

Logan is a young girl from the plein, her father wants her to spin, to compete in the car spinning events that have long been illegal in South Africa, her mother is worried about safety. The spinning fraternity is working toward legitimacy, the government is making promises. A father just wants his daughter to find an outlet for her frustrations, and spinning is what he knows.

Spinning as a sport struggles with safety issues, and having regulated pitches could help with this. The Department of Sports, Arts and Culture is shown to be doing something, but nothing really comes of this narratively. Logan's father confronts the organisers of legal events in one scene, frustrated with the time it takes to pull an event together, yet there is no real accumulation of frustration, at times coming across as helicopter filmmaking.

Everything builds to that final event, you seldom feel the weight of the systemic oppression around this sport. But it is visible in every frame. To an outside viewer, this might feel thin, but its hyperlocal nature is the very heart of it. From Dust We Spin avoids all the traps that come with trying to explain this shit to outsiders.

There are two moments in From Dust We Spin that are pure storytelling craft. The cut directly after the most epic slow-motion spin: Eddie Rasta leaping off the running board of his car mid-donut, enveloped in smoke, like some ancient god returning victorious. And then at the film's climax, Busby Berkeley meets the Cape Flats, one of the most earned top shots in recent film history.

Waaabap-bap-bap.

← · DIFF26· →Review | Who Is Still Alive

]]> https://bios.net.za/diff26-from-dust-we-spin-dir-julia-jansch-82mins Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:17:10 +0000 Reactionary Reviews | Black Burns Fast | dir: Sandulela Asanda | 95mins https://bios.net.za/reactionary-reviews-black-burns-fast-dir-sandulela-asanda-95mins?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Reactionary Reviews | Black Burns Fast | dir: Sandulela Asanda | 95mins --- Black Burns Fast gets right into it upfront, announcing and dispensing with setup and exposition in teen rapid-fire dialogue, overcompensating, overstating, and shrugging all at the same time. Self-consciously un-self-conscious. It would be easy to be mean about the overacting teens, but you know what? Teens overact irl. !--more-- I must announce my bias upfront. Mean Girls is probably my favourite film of all time. Once Black Burns Fast gets over all the announcing of what it is, it settles quickly into discovering what it is, and Eshile Ndleleni as Luthando gets into discovering who she is. All tropes are followed, all norms are upended. This is a deeply political film, via glitter and 8-bit. Simply put BBF is a high school love story, complete with ye old school dance as its destination. Kids dodge school security while sneaking around in the dark, get detention, have awkward conversations with mom, talk back to teachers during sex education and smoke their first ciggarette, have their first kiss, get set up with a boy for the dance while wanting to go with someone else, fall out, make up, make out. Black Burns Fast explores the shaky crossroads of peer pressure and self-discovery all in a gloriously goofy swirl of stylistic quirks, some straight from the grade 11 play. Luthando navigates the discovery of that first love, the resulting fallout with her BFF, her newly found popularity with all the inherent anxieties, and while discovering herself, makes all the mistakes, deals with all the betrayals, has all the awakenings. Where BBF really succeeds is in the world building details: naturalistic background action, a score that knows its place, real world lighting, a sound mix that gets gossip right, abstracted visual quirks, fussy teachers that make it all about themselves, the fact that the mean girls are actually quite sweet, and the okes in sunglasses pall-bearing the hamster funeral. The central performances of Luthando, her BFF Jodie (Mila Smith) and Ayanda (Muadi Ilung), are grounded in the emotional core of every moment, giving the film an inner life so rare in contemporary South African cinema. Black Burns Fast is everything Spud wishes it could have been. I cannot be enthusiastic enough about Black Burns Fast; it should be a compulsory set work in both first year media studies and grade ten Life Orientation. You should bunk school to see it. ---- Benaaihilism ← · Reviews · → That Winter Fest ]]> Reactionary Reviews | Black Burns Fast | dir: Sandulela Asanda | 95mins

Black Burns Fast gets right into it upfront, announcing and dispensing with setup and exposition in teen rapid-fire dialogue, overcompensating, overstating, and shrugging all at the same time. Self-consciously un-self-conscious. It would be easy to be mean about the overacting teens, but you know what? Teens overact irl.

I must announce my bias upfront. Mean Girls is probably my favourite film of all time.

Once Black Burns Fast gets over all the announcing of what it is, it settles quickly into discovering what it is, and Eshile Ndleleni as Luthando gets into discovering who she is. All tropes are followed, all norms are upended. This is a deeply political film, via glitter and 8-bit.

Simply put BBF is a high school love story, complete with ye old school dance as its destination. Kids dodge school security while sneaking around in the dark, get detention, have awkward conversations with mom, talk back to teachers during sex education and smoke their first ciggarette, have their first kiss, get set up with a boy for the dance while wanting to go with someone else, fall out, make up, make out. Black Burns Fast explores the shaky crossroads of peer pressure and self-discovery all in a gloriously goofy swirl of stylistic quirks, some straight from the grade 11 play.

Luthando navigates the discovery of that first love, the resulting fallout with her BFF, her newly found popularity with all the inherent anxieties, and while discovering herself, makes all the mistakes, deals with all the betrayals, has all the awakenings.

Where BBF really succeeds is in the world building details: naturalistic background action, a score that knows its place, real world lighting, a sound mix that gets gossip right, abstracted visual quirks, fussy teachers that make it all about themselves, the fact that the mean girls are actually quite sweet, and the okes in sunglasses pall-bearing the hamster funeral.

The central performances of Luthando, her BFF Jodie (Mila Smith) and Ayanda (Muadi Ilung), are grounded in the emotional core of every moment, giving the film an inner life so rare in contemporary South African cinema. Black Burns Fast is everything Spud wishes it could have been.

I cannot be enthusiastic enough about Black Burns Fast; it should be a compulsory set work in both first year media studies and grade ten Life Orientation.

You should bunk school to see it.

Benaaihilism ← · Reviews · → That Winter Fest

]]> https://bios.net.za/reactionary-reviews-black-burns-fast-dir-sandulela-asanda-95mins Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:57:35 +0000 Diplomatic Immunity https://bios.net.za/diplomatic-immunity?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[--- The Rise of the Afrikaner Villain in the Trump Era --- by Roger Young --- From Mel Gibson to Jason Statham, the Afrikaner villain has long been a trope in Hollywood cinema, but after Elon Musk saying distinctly Bond Villain type things in that accent, it's no longer just Auret, Vosloo and Copley getting punched in the face, international stars are starting to get in on the act. !--more-- In a contemporary version of Wilbur Smith's A Time To Die, the hero Sean Courtney would read onscreen as a villain, a mercenary come big game hunter who chases an elephant into a foreign country on the whims of a millionaire, who is then gored to death by the elephant, the incident then sparks a minor border war, "native" trackers die horribly to save the boss man and the daughter of the millionaire, and then when it all goes belly up and "the blacks" might win, our hero phones the SADF and gets them to helicopter them out. If A Time To Die was made today the rebel leader would be played by Will Smith, directed by Michael Mann. Courtney and his henchmen would be played by Vosloo, Copley and Auret. The politics might have changed but the mercenary persists. The trope stretches back through mercenary-adjacent Bogart in The African Queen to Kurtz. Hollywood tends to recycle its heroes. Back in 1989 an Afrikaner Villain was a political statement, the anti-apartheid movement was peaking. It's doubtful that Patsy Kensit had any idea that she was in a political thriller. The idea that Afrikaners were bad was just floating in the air. In 2026 the mercenary walks into the film carrying years of accumulated meaning, only to be punched in the face by Jason Statham. In 1989 an age of villainry was heralded in by a single almost inaudible "Yassis" in Lethal Weapon 2. Geopolitics changes, the Afrikaners in Lethal Weapon are played by international actors, and by 1993's Hard Target, an actual Afrikaner, Vosloo, says as Pik Van Cleef, "That's good, 'cause I know you wouldn't want to hurt my feelings". In a strange confluence of privilege and Rainbow Nation hoopla the white South African actor arrived at early 90s Hollywood auditions forgiven, while the notion of "the Afrikaner" remained largely dubious. The Voëlvry progressives had no place in Hollywood's conception of "Afrikaner". Villainry works in oppositions. An American hero needs an opposing force. Over the course of the '90s, as the service film industry grew in South Africa, B-grade American stars were provided a wealth of mercenaries and safari guides that would mulk their moments. Sean Taylor was the OG of scenery chewing, and what scenery it was. In 1998's Tarzan and the Lost City, the backdrops against which Sean Taylor, Gys De Villiers, and Russel Savadier died were lush grasslands, dense jungle. Some by falling into gorges, some by arrow, some quietly in the background because they had pissed off the cast coordinator. And so the Afrikaner henchman became legible as a type to the Hollywood casting agent. That other types of South African accents did not is largely Nelson Mandela™’s fault. A black South African actor could never play an oppositional force to the redeeming hero, when the black South African's key legibility point in Hollywood was a higher morality, forgiveness. The trope gathers momentum with The Sum of All Fears, Vosloo and Marius Weyers (as Van De Kaap) in Blood Diamond, and an epic mercenary pile up over eight seasons of Strike Back. Three major tropes intersect with Afrikanerness and masculinity: diamonds, nature and guns. Largely it is about the corrupting influence of the object. The South African Diamond Villain gets its origin on screen in Diamonds Are Forever and continues unabated since then, culminating in Rosamund Pike. From The African Queen to The Ghost and the Darkness to Sheridan's 1923, to Beast and Rogue, every good safari story needs a white hunter (S/O Nick Boraine) with cynical ethics. Eastwood himself punctured the ego of the great white hunter in White Hunter, Black Heart in 1990, but the racist hotel manager in that film cements the type. Mercenaries abound in the jungles of Africa, or around CIA black sites (S/O Robert Hobbs) and because these are often shot in South Africa, the mercenaries with the witty dying quips are often accented Afrikaans. Hollywood works in broad sweeps. Which brings us to the cottage industry of Sharlto Copley, a variable smorgasbord of Van Ders, to the point where Copley now plays a Van Der Koy in Boy Kills World with an American accent, and in Monkey Man a South African with an Afrikaans accent via a BBC trained dialect coach. Copley has often said that he bases his portrayals on the recces and Afrikaans hard cases he knew growing up. And those hard cases, with those accents, have persisted in the background of news stories of coups and mercenary forces for much of this century. Copley and Auret brought the Afrikaner nut bag mercenary truly to the fore of the casting agent's mind in Blomkamp's Elysium, and from there the trope proliferates. Auret in Rebel Moon, Copley in everything. Afrikaans used as the language of demons in Lucifer via Lesley-Ann Brandt, who just reached for what was available to her. Val Kilmer would never have gotten away with that "jissus" in this age of professional performative Afrikaans. It is not to say that there is a vast Hollywood conspiracy constantly casting Afrikanerness as the bad guy. It is just that, through a confluence of factors, by 2018 the type was within ready reach. Hollywood had a Bru Ex Machina. Enter AfriForum & Tucker Carlson highlighting the "Afrikaner Genocide narrative" in 2018, Musk and Trump campaign around it, weaponising victimhood. Errol Musk appears on social media almost as a caricature of the amoral old-world Afrikaner patriarch. Andy Serkis, in 2018, says of his Afrikaner accented Black Panther character, "He'd fit in the White House quite perfectly". The politics of the moment doesn't reach the casting department, all that is important is that Klaue works as a villain, and his accent saves the scriptwriter ten minutes of exposition. Black Panther is the nexus of several tropes. John Kani speaking an African language is the moral center of the film, Serkis is the opposite. The redemptive African, the villainous Afrikaner. Ultimately with Hollywood the view of South Africa is now strictly black and white, a strange result of Rainbow Nation politics. A more nuanced idea of what it is to be South African will not come from blockbuster films. From script idea to production to screen for a Hollywood production is roughly three to four years. Suddenly Marton Csokas' mercenary is flattening his vowels in Freelance, The Beekeeper is being peppered with "Bru", and Theo James's diamond thief murders the accent in Fuze. The Afrikaner refugee, now working as a janitor in Wisconsin, left South Africa because he thought "the blacks" were coming for him. Turns out, it's Jason Statham. Rosamund Pike's accent, as diamond heiress Veronika Vanderberg in Now You See Me 3, is the perfect indicator of the trope's prominence and misalignment. No South African diamond heiress would be caught dead speaking in an Afrikaans accent, their parents afforded them the best international schools. The most authentic part of Pike's portrayal of the heiress is when she speaks French with a British accent. As Arnold Vosloo's Van Der Byl says in Jack Ryan, "Are you lost, bru?" ---]]>

The Rise of the Afrikaner Villain in the Trump Era

by Roger Young

From Mel Gibson to Jason Statham, the Afrikaner villain has long been a trope in Hollywood cinema, but after Elon Musk saying distinctly Bond Villain type things in that accent, it's no longer just Auret, Vosloo and Copley getting punched in the face, international stars are starting to get in on the act.

In a contemporary version of Wilbur Smith's A Time To Die, the hero Sean Courtney would read onscreen as a villain, a mercenary come big game hunter who chases an elephant into a foreign country on the whims of a millionaire, who is then gored to death by the elephant, the incident then sparks a minor border war, “native” trackers die horribly to save the boss man and the daughter of the millionaire, and then when it all goes belly up and “the blacks” might win, our hero phones the SADF and gets them to helicopter them out.

If A Time To Die was made today the rebel leader would be played by Will Smith, directed by Michael Mann. Courtney and his henchmen would be played by Vosloo, Copley and Auret.

The politics might have changed but the mercenary persists. The trope stretches back through mercenary-adjacent Bogart in The African Queen to Kurtz. Hollywood tends to recycle its heroes.

Back in 1989 an Afrikaner Villain was a political statement, the anti-apartheid movement was peaking. It's doubtful that Patsy Kensit had any idea that she was in a political thriller. The idea that Afrikaners were bad was just floating in the air. In 2026 the mercenary walks into the film carrying years of accumulated meaning, only to be punched in the face by Jason Statham.

In 1989 an age of villainry was heralded in by a single almost inaudible “Yassis” in Lethal Weapon 2. Geopolitics changes, the Afrikaners in Lethal Weapon are played by international actors, and by 1993's Hard Target, an actual Afrikaner, Vosloo, says as Pik Van Cleef, “That's good, 'cause I know you wouldn't want to hurt my feelings”.

In a strange confluence of privilege and Rainbow Nation hoopla the white South African actor arrived at early 90s Hollywood auditions forgiven, while the notion of “the Afrikaner” remained largely dubious. The Voëlvry progressives had no place in Hollywood's conception of “Afrikaner”.

Villainry works in oppositions. An American hero needs an opposing force. Over the course of the '90s, as the service film industry grew in South Africa, B-grade American stars were provided a wealth of mercenaries and safari guides that would mulk their moments. Sean Taylor was the OG of scenery chewing, and what scenery it was. In 1998's Tarzan and the Lost City, the backdrops against which Sean Taylor, Gys De Villiers, and Russel Savadier died were lush grasslands, dense jungle. Some by falling into gorges, some by arrow, some quietly in the background because they had pissed off the cast coordinator.

And so the Afrikaner henchman became legible as a type to the Hollywood casting agent. That other types of South African accents did not is largely Nelson Mandela™’s fault. A black South African actor could never play an oppositional force to the redeeming hero, when the black South African's key legibility point in Hollywood was a higher morality, forgiveness.

The trope gathers momentum with The Sum of All Fears, Vosloo and Marius Weyers (as Van De Kaap) in Blood Diamond, and an epic mercenary pile up over eight seasons of Strike Back.

Three major tropes intersect with Afrikanerness and masculinity: diamonds, nature and guns. Largely it is about the corrupting influence of the object. The South African Diamond Villain gets its origin on screen in Diamonds Are Forever and continues unabated since then, culminating in Rosamund Pike. From The African Queen to The Ghost and the Darkness to Sheridan's 1923, to Beast and Rogue, every good safari story needs a white hunter (S/O Nick Boraine) with cynical ethics. Eastwood himself punctured the ego of the great white hunter in White Hunter, Black Heart in 1990, but the racist hotel manager in that film cements the type. Mercenaries abound in the jungles of Africa, or around CIA black sites (S/O Robert Hobbs) and because these are often shot in South Africa, the mercenaries with the witty dying quips are often accented Afrikaans.

Hollywood works in broad sweeps. Which brings us to the cottage industry of Sharlto Copley, a variable smorgasbord of Van Ders, to the point where Copley now plays a Van Der Koy in Boy Kills World with an American accent, and in Monkey Man a South African with an Afrikaans accent via a BBC trained dialect coach. Copley has often said that he bases his portrayals on the recces and Afrikaans hard cases he knew growing up. And those hard cases, with those accents, have persisted in the background of news stories of coups and mercenary forces for much of this century.

Copley and Auret brought the Afrikaner nut bag mercenary truly to the fore of the casting agent's mind in Blomkamp's Elysium, and from there the trope proliferates. Auret in Rebel Moon, Copley in everything. Afrikaans used as the language of demons in Lucifer via Lesley-Ann Brandt, who just reached for what was available to her.

Val Kilmer would never have gotten away with that “jissus” in this age of professional performative Afrikaans.

It is not to say that there is a vast Hollywood conspiracy constantly casting Afrikanerness as the bad guy. It is just that, through a confluence of factors, by 2018 the type was within ready reach. Hollywood had a Bru Ex Machina.

Enter AfriForum & Tucker Carlson highlighting the “Afrikaner Genocide narrative” in 2018, Musk and Trump campaign around it, weaponising victimhood. Errol Musk appears on social media almost as a caricature of the amoral old-world Afrikaner patriarch.

Andy Serkis, in 2018, says of his Afrikaner accented Black Panther character, “He'd fit in the White House quite perfectly”. The politics of the moment doesn't reach the casting department, all that is important is that Klaue works as a villain, and his accent saves the scriptwriter ten minutes of exposition.

Black Panther is the nexus of several tropes. John Kani speaking an African language is the moral center of the film, Serkis is the opposite. The redemptive African, the villainous Afrikaner.

Ultimately with Hollywood the view of South Africa is now strictly black and white, a strange result of Rainbow Nation politics. A more nuanced idea of what it is to be South African will not come from blockbuster films.

From script idea to production to screen for a Hollywood production is roughly three to four years. Suddenly Marton Csokas' mercenary is flattening his vowels in Freelance, The Beekeeper is being peppered with “Bru”, and Theo James's diamond thief murders the accent in Fuze. The Afrikaner refugee, now working as a janitor in Wisconsin, left South Africa because he thought “the blacks” were coming for him. Turns out, it's Jason Statham.

Rosamund Pike's accent, as diamond heiress Veronika Vanderberg in Now You See Me 3, is the perfect indicator of the trope's prominence and misalignment. No South African diamond heiress would be caught dead speaking in an Afrikaans accent, their parents afforded them the best international schools. The most authentic part of Pike's portrayal of the heiress is when she speaks French with a British accent.

As Arnold Vosloo's Van Der Byl says in Jack Ryan, “Are you lost, bru?”

]]> https://bios.net.za/diplomatic-immunity Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:47:08 +0000 DIFF26 | Who Is Still Alive (2025) | Nicolas Wadimoff | 1h 53m https://bios.net.za/diff26-who-is-still-alive-2025-nicolas-wadimoff-1h-53m?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[DIFF26 | Who Is Still Alive (2025) | Nicolas Wadimoff | 1h 53m --- SC5 | Wed 29 July | 5pm SC7 | Sun 2 Aug | 5pm --- There are no statistics here. There are no images of bombed-out buildings. No before-and-after satellite images of devastation. No discussions of political actors. These are nine people in a blacked-out studio talking of their love for Gaza, the land, the music, the people. Wadimoff resists the familiar grammar, and while the film sometimes grapples for imagery, the cumulative effect is human. !--more-- Here are some people, who loved a place, wish to return to that place, and mourn the loss of what that place was, while that place still is. They recount details. They describe. There was the sea, there was this music school I used to go to, I built these shelves, my grandfather built this house stone by stone. The rockets hit my neighbour's house. We carried her out, she was full of shrapnel. I got lost because I could no longer tell the streets apart. I left people behind. I don't know how to go back. Nine residents of Gaza, who now live in Egypt, who do not have the right to return, the right to work — they live a strange half-life of memory, regret and impotence. In the face of this moment they recount their humanness, their memories, the moments that got them to this place. This is all that this film is. They gather themselves. They are people. ---- Review | From Dust We Spin← · DIFF26 ·→ Dance With Me ]]> DIFF26 | Who Is Still Alive (2025) | Nicolas Wadimoff | 1h 53m

SC5 | Wed 29 July | 5pm
SC7 | Sun 2 Aug | 5pm

There are no statistics here. There are no images of bombed-out buildings. No before-and-after satellite images of devastation. No discussions of political actors. These are nine people in a blacked-out studio talking of their love for Gaza, the land, the music, the people. Wadimoff resists the familiar grammar, and while the film sometimes grapples for imagery, the cumulative effect is human.

Here are some people, who loved a place, wish to return to that place, and mourn the loss of what that place was, while that place still is.

They recount details. They describe. There was the sea, there was this music school I used to go to, I built these shelves, my grandfather built this house stone by stone. The rockets hit my neighbour's house. We carried her out, she was full of shrapnel. I got lost because I could no longer tell the streets apart. I left people behind. I don't know how to go back.

Nine residents of Gaza, who now live in Egypt, who do not have the right to return, the right to work — they live a strange half-life of memory, regret and impotence. In the face of this moment they recount their humanness, their memories, the moments that got them to this place. This is all that this film is.

They gather themselves. They are people.

Review | From Dust We Spin← · DIFF26 ·→ Dance With Me

]]> https://bios.net.za/diff26-who-is-still-alive-2025-nicolas-wadimoff-1h-53m Mon, 27 Jul 2026 07:38:23 +0000 DIFF26 | Dance With Me (2025) | Dir: Romanuse Langa | 79 min https://bios.net.za/diff26-dance-with-me-dir-romanuse-langa-2025-79-min?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[DIFF26 | Dance With Me (2025) | Dir: Romanuse Langa | 79 min --- SC5 | Fri 24 Jul | 5pm --- Dance With Me hits all the story beats but does not convincingly portray a universe with an interior life. The world feels inhabited. The cinematography is excellent. The premise is solid, a new take on the disgruntled teenager finding herself, this time through gumboot dancing. But the staging is uniformly awkward. Many of the plot points arrive without any sort of dramatic logic. The film happens because the script is written. !--more-- The film seems motivated not by the character's journey, but by the idea of making a coming of age film about gumboot dancing. Sped up drone shots, social media posts on screen, an entire internal awakening transmitted through watching the main character watch a Facebook reel. Scenes unfold without any earned momentum. By the thirty minute mark the awkward collision of Karate Kid and rom-com jars so that even thin disbelief becomes hard to maintain. The music broadcasts the desired gestalt the director hopes the audience receives, the self-aware camera moves, the script that tells not shows, and the performances that read as performances, all combine into a whole less than the sum of its parts. A troubled family life, a desire to get more from life, a past moment of trauma, a young trainer and an old trainer battling over who gets to run the community hall, a flamboyant but demanding choreographer, montage training sequences, a father who gives good gumboot advice, a moment where she might not make it, has to dig deep, a pensive moment on the beach, the two trainers reconciling, trauma memories almost derailing the final dance, triumph, cheers, credits roll. Things happen not as consequences of actions or beliefs, but because someone thought this is what normally happens next. Often the cast resort to soap opera style acting, and the script makes it hard for any other interpretation, but Minenhle Sithole acquits herself against the material and achieves moments where she inhabits the role. While the staging is often rote, the locations are the film's authentic character. The central idea is solid, but not fully explored. The unfolding of the trauma, while an obvious plot point, is sensitively handled. And there are true moments of chemistry in among all of it. It is not without promise, it is just not fully realised. Dance With Me shouldn't be in competition. It should be in a classroom, or a rough-cut lab, or a mentor's inbox with a gentle note attached. That it's here, in competition at an international festival, tells me more about the festival than it does about the film. Dance With Me is a learning experience. A young person finds a positive community activity. But the filmmaker never quite comes of age. --- Review | Who Is Still Alive← · DIFF26· →Review | Themba]]> DIFF26 | Dance With Me (2025) | Dir: Romanuse Langa | 79 min

SC5 | Fri 24 Jul | 5pm

Dance With Me hits all the story beats but does not convincingly portray a universe with an interior life. The world feels inhabited. The cinematography is excellent. The premise is solid, a new take on the disgruntled teenager finding herself, this time through gumboot dancing. But the staging is uniformly awkward. Many of the plot points arrive without any sort of dramatic logic. The film happens because the script is written.

The film seems motivated not by the character's journey, but by the idea of making a coming of age film about gumboot dancing. Sped up drone shots, social media posts on screen, an entire internal awakening transmitted through watching the main character watch a Facebook reel. Scenes unfold without any earned momentum.

By the thirty minute mark the awkward collision of Karate Kid and rom-com jars so that even thin disbelief becomes hard to maintain. The music broadcasts the desired gestalt the director hopes the audience receives, the self-aware camera moves, the script that tells not shows, and the performances that read as performances, all combine into a whole less than the sum of its parts.

A troubled family life, a desire to get more from life, a past moment of trauma, a young trainer and an old trainer battling over who gets to run the community hall, a flamboyant but demanding choreographer, montage training sequences, a father who gives good gumboot advice, a moment where she might not make it, has to dig deep, a pensive moment on the beach, the two trainers reconciling, trauma memories almost derailing the final dance, triumph, cheers, credits roll. Things happen not as consequences of actions or beliefs, but because someone thought this is what normally happens next.

Often the cast resort to soap opera style acting, and the script makes it hard for any other interpretation, but Minenhle Sithole acquits herself against the material and achieves moments where she inhabits the role. While the staging is often rote, the locations are the film's authentic character. The central idea is solid, but not fully explored. The unfolding of the trauma, while an obvious plot point, is sensitively handled. And there are true moments of chemistry in among all of it. It is not without promise, it is just not fully realised.

Dance With Me shouldn't be in competition. It should be in a classroom, or a rough-cut lab, or a mentor's inbox with a gentle note attached. That it's here, in competition at an international festival, tells me more about the festival than it does about the film.

Dance With Me is a learning experience. A young person finds a positive community activity. But the filmmaker never quite comes of age.

Review | Who Is Still Alive← · DIFF26· →Review | Themba

]]> https://bios.net.za/diff26-dance-with-me-dir-romanuse-langa-2025-79-min Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:34:04 +0000 DIFF26 | Themba | dir: Luthando Mngomezulu | 62mins https://bios.net.za/themba-dir-luthando-mngomezulu-62mins?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[DIFF26 | Themba | dir: Luthando Mngomezulu | 62mins --- SC6 | Friday 24 July | 8pm --- People grieve differently. This is the premise of Mngomezulu’s Themba. The entire film is two people grieving differently, and misunderstanding each other’s grief. There is little plot business. !--more-- In one scene, Nokuthula begins to move out, has a memory and changes her mind, and nothing is made of it by the characters or by the film. This is Themba’s great power, it makes no attempt to impose meaning through explanation. Expectations are set up and overturned visually, quietly, deftly. It is a film where people stand around, adrift. The opening funeral scene unfolds with no drama, nothing much happens in the traditional sense, and yet by the end of its sixty two minutes it left me wanting it to be a longer film. If anything, the pace of Themba is not glacial enough. The performances are restrained, spare but sometimes veer into the overwrought, some of the staging is not quite formed, and the music often reaches too hard to tell the audience how to feel. Themba has all the hallmarks of a first feature. The film manages to transcend all of these flaws. There is one plot device so hackneyed, so obvious, and it moved me to tears. This is exactly the kind of film for which one reserves the adjectives, “contemplative”, and “meditative”. They are not enough. Themba is a film where words are not enough. Everything proceeds because Themba struggles to find words for a deeper wound. Where it would be easy to turn this inwardness in a slow build to violence, Mngomezulu resists the obvious, avoids externalising into high drama. Landscapes are used as a counterpoint to grief. The often overused drone shot here employed thematically. They offer little consolation to a couple whose child has just been taken from them in a random hit and run. An automated stove hob light used to signal emotional defeat. Themba is not a perfect film, it is not even a great film, but has that rare confidence of talent. Rejecting all the easy story devices, it stays with the untranslatable core of the grief. ---- Dance WIth Me | Review← · DIFF26·→ I, Myself Am The Sun ]]> DIFF26 | Themba | dir: Luthando Mngomezulu | 62mins

SC6 | Friday 24 July | 8pm

People grieve differently. This is the premise of Mngomezulu’s Themba. The entire film is two people grieving differently, and misunderstanding each other’s grief. There is little plot business.

In one scene, Nokuthula begins to move out, has a memory and changes her mind, and nothing is made of it by the characters or by the film. This is Themba’s great power, it makes no attempt to impose meaning through explanation. Expectations are set up and overturned visually, quietly, deftly.

It is a film where people stand around, adrift. The opening funeral scene unfolds with no drama, nothing much happens in the traditional sense, and yet by the end of its sixty two minutes it left me wanting it to be a longer film. If anything, the pace of Themba is not glacial enough.

The performances are restrained, spare but sometimes veer into the overwrought, some of the staging is not quite formed, and the music often reaches too hard to tell the audience how to feel. Themba has all the hallmarks of a first feature. The film manages to transcend all of these flaws. There is one plot device so hackneyed, so obvious, and it moved me to tears.

This is exactly the kind of film for which one reserves the adjectives, “contemplative”, and “meditative”. They are not enough. Themba is a film where words are not enough. Everything proceeds because Themba struggles to find words for a deeper wound. Where it would be easy to turn this inwardness in a slow build to violence, Mngomezulu resists the obvious, avoids externalising into high drama.

Landscapes are used as a counterpoint to grief. The often overused drone shot here employed thematically. They offer little consolation to a couple whose child has just been taken from them in a random hit and run. An automated stove hob light used to signal emotional defeat.

Themba is not a perfect film, it is not even a great film, but has that rare confidence of talent. Rejecting all the easy story devices, it stays with the untranslatable core of the grief.

Dance WIth Me | Review← · DIFF26·→ I, Myself Am The Sun

]]> https://bios.net.za/themba-dir-luthando-mngomezulu-62mins Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:33:58 +0000