Award-winning Skoonheid at Studio 77

AfricAvenir on Saturday, February 25 presents Skoonheid at Studio 77- South Africa’s official entry for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

This film is the story of a man who is the product of apartheid and feels excluded from the new South Africa. Raised within the confines of conservatism, Francois van Heerden, the protagonist in Oliver Hermanus’ latest film, carefully constructs his life to achieve societal approval, but experiences a sterile existence that fills him with profound regret and the conviction that his is a wasted life.

The film exposes the private shames and secret obsessions of a conservative, white, Afrikaans man.

Skoonheid is a study in regret, lust and self-destruction. It is a distinctive lens on the subject of beauty.

Van Heerden lives quite a neat life. He is a family man in his mid-forties who lives in Bloemfontein and is well established. He has all the trappings of a peerless Calvinist existence, but beneath the veneer of this seemingly faultless Afrikaner lives a seething nest of internal conflict.

When Van Heerden meets an Adonis who is the son of an old friend, the chance encounter undermines the foundations of his tidy life, but tentatively opens the door to the possibility of happiness.

The narrative says much about society’s obsession with beauty, but this is eloquently expressed through one man’s struggle blindsided by lust.

In Skoonheid, Van Heerden’s neat life unravels because of his obsession with youth and beauty.

Skoonheid recently made history by being the first Afrikaans film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The fifth local director to show at Cannes, Hermanus’ movie was screened in the “Un Certain Regard” section of Cannes’ official selections, which runs alongside the Palme d'Or. It subsequently won the Queer Palm Award during the festival.

Oliver Hermanus’ acclaimed film has been announced as South Africa’s official entry into the Oscars category for Best Foreign Film.

Other awards that Skoonheid has won include the Best South African Feature and Special Mention Award, Durban International Film Festival 2011, and Best Actor, Deon Lotz, Zürich International Film Festival 2011.

click to enlarge BEST: Deon Lotz, main actor in Skoonheid, won best Best Actor Award at the Zürich International Film Festival 2011 © Contributed