Manie van Rensburg
Writing
Biography
Van Rensburg, born in Krugersdorp in 1945, was never easy to categorize. He was described in 1983 in the Cape Argus as “a director with the talent and skill that could eventually put him with the ranks of the world’s best”; and South African film historian Martin Botha describes his development as a filmmaker as the chronicler of “the Afrikaner psyche during three significant periods: firstly, the 1930s and the trauma of urbanization; secondly, the revival of Afrikaner nationalism in the 1940s; and thirdly, the modern urban Afrikaner of the 1970s and 1980s”. Van Rensburg was obsessed with film from an early age. He bought his first movie camera at age 14 with his earnings as a church organist. In 1969, after a stint at Potchefstroom University, Van Rensburg formed his own film company, Visio Films. He was 22. He started with R140 in the bank, and directed Freddie’s in Love, a film described by Botha as one having “avant garde tendencies”. Undeterred, Van Rensburg moved on to make Die Bankrower (The Bank Robber), a competent thriller that received positive notices from the critic. There was no letup in Van Rensburg’s passion to make films. When television finally made its appearance in South Africa in 1976, he turned to this medium as an outlet for his considerable talents. But his relationship with the State broadcaster was cut after he accompanied 52 prominent South Africans when they traveled to Dakar in 1987 to talk with the then banned ANC. Van Rensburg received many awards for his work inside South Africa, and also abroad. “His films,” says Botha, “explore the psyche of the Afrikaner within an historical as well as a contemporary context. He is preoccupied with communication problems between people, especially within love relationships. The outsider is a dominant figure in his universe. By studying Van Rensburg’s oeuvre, one realizes that he is probably South Africa’s most prominent contemporary auteur director.” He formed friendships with people like Jans Rautenbach and Van Zyl Slabbert, yet his life was consistently enigmatic and sad. His marriage to actress Grethe Fox failed. He broke his back and was confined to a wheelchair. And at the end of 1993 he committed suicide, an act still clouded in mystery. —kwailawai.blogspot.co.uk
Known For
Pop le Roux is a beautiful, but relatively uneducated, boer girl from a poor family. The young men of the county all compete with each other to win her favor. The man she loves is Manie Cronjé, He is just as poor and Pop sees no chance of suffering further. She eventually marries Jan Greyling, the rich widower. Gradually she adapts to her new life and becomes a good wife for Jan.
Wasted Spring
The first Afrikaans comedy series for television, about a bumbling private detective with a good heart and a talent for grabbing the wrong end of the stick. Willem would like nothing more than to be an average P.I. who focusses on simple divorce cases, but he keeps getting mixed up in more adventurous and dangerous affairs. His secretary Pennie is a kind, simple girl with her head in the clouds.
Willem
Robey Leibbrandt was a South African boxer who became fascinated with Nazi ideology during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In1939 he led an operation to overthrow the pro-Allied government of General Jan Smuts.
The Fourth Reich
Danie Bosman is a civil servant dreaming of being a composer. But this is Depression-era South Africa and no one is interested in buying his music. Then, one day, someone hears a song he composed for his son.
Danie Bosman: The Story of the Greatest South African composer
True story of a man who believes God owns the earth and land cannot be owned by anyone, therefore he's at liberty to build his church on ground occupied by others.
The Native Who Caused All the Trouble
A Gentle story with a moral of forgive and forget at the kernel of its’ comedy exterior ~ but also one that accurately foretold the changes that were to sweep across South Africa in 1994, as an uptight suburban Johannesburg housewife (Elize Cawood, with an equally uptight husband played by Marius Weyers) accepts a lift from a Sowetan taxi driver (Patrick Shai) and gets taken into another world entirely
Taxi to Soweto
A Test Group Travels to The Kalahari Desert
The Mantis Project
South African TV Movie
Heroes
"Dam Bouers" is Coming to Gluksdal to Build a Dam, Everyone is for it Except Pinkie and Her Father Because the Dam is going to Flood their Farm
Geluksdal
South African TV Movie
The Horse Smuggler
A traditional famer seen as the new voice of Afrikaners. He crumbles when his wife leaves him for another man
The Square
South African Film
The Lighthouse
The son of a banker decides to steal money from the bank to double it through gambling and then returning it. Unfortunately for him, he is being watched as he succeeds, and interesting events and twists follow.
The Bank Robber
South African TV Movie
Anna Meintjies
A Lonely Man Falls in Love With an English Woman He Meets on His Way to Work in Hillbrow