04/04/2011

The latest film of Dutch director Paula van der Oest, still most famous abroad for her Oscar-nominated comedy Zus & Zo, is currently playing on 38 Dutch screens, courtesy of distributor A-Film.

The historical film, set in South Africa, looks at the life of local poetess Ingrid Jonker, played by Dutch star actress Carice van Houten. Jonker was a troubled white South African who wrote in Afrikaans in the 1950s and ‘60s and who committed suicide by drowning in 1965.

Black Butterflies [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was written by South African screenwriter Greg Latter, who also wrote the Nelson Mandela tale Goodbye Bafana [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which Bille August directed in 2007. Incidentally, Mandela was one of the champions of Jonker’s poetry, reading her poem Die Kind in Afrikaans during the opening of the country’s first democratic parliament session in 1994.

Rutger Hauer, who after a long international career has returned to star in local productions (Bride Flight [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Sombogaart
interview: Hanneke Niens
film profile], The Heineken Kidnapping), here stars as Jonker’s father, a party member who denied Jonker was his daughter since she vigorously opposed the party’s apartheid ideas. Irish actor Liam Cunningham co-stars as a love interest of Jonker’s.

The film will have its international premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month, where it will play as part of the World Narrative Competition. The U.S. spring showcase will also present Dick Maas’s gory Santa Claus horror tale Saint in the Cinemania section. That film was released locally last winter and did upbeat business.

Munich-based Bavaria Film International handles international sales of Black Butterflies.