Synopsis

Melancholy music film in black and white, with sand and silhouettes. About the loss of a mother, with her unexpected exuberance, but who also cries Puccini melodies. Inspired by Jeanne Goosen’s eponymous poem, recited by the well-known South-African actress Elize Cawood, to the aria O mio babbino caro from Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi, in a legendary performance by Maria Callas (1955).

Naomi van Niekerk

Naomi van Niekerk works with moving-images, printmaking, puppetry and visual performance. Her extensive training in object-based theatre inspires her to breathe life into inanimate materials albeit objects or liquid powder that is animated frame by frame using a camera installed above a light box. Her work as film director includes short films of haunting poignancy and power based on sensitive interpretations of stark, South African narrative poems that speak to her. Between 2015 and 2017, she directed, animated and independently produced three short animated films: 'n Gewone Blou Maandagoggend (An Ordinary Blue Monday, 2014; Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for Best First Film at the Annecy), By alle skone dinge (To All Things Beautiful, 2015) and My mamma is bossies (My Mum's Bonkers, 2017).