Source Unknown – Friday 30th July, 2004

The Helderberg’s first ever District Mail Art Film Festival takes place in conjunction with Ster-Kinekor Theatres at the Somerset Mall from Friday, August 6 to Thursday, August 19. The festival kicks off on August 5 with a gala evening for invited guests and the screening of The Story of an African Farm, telling the story of life in 1870 in South Africa on a farm in the Karoo. Fat Tant Sannie (Karin Van der Laag) looks after her charges, the sweet Em (Anneke Weidemann) and the independent Lyndall, (Kasha Kropinski). It was Em’s late father’s dying wish. Gentle Otto (Armin Mueller-Stal), the farm manager, runs the farm and cares for Waldo, his son.

Waldo (Luke Gallant) is bright and is busy designing a model of a sheepshearing machine that he hopes will make them all rich. Things change when the sinister, eccentric Bonaparte Blenkins (Richard E Grant) with his bulbous nose and chimney pot hat arrives. This stranger believes that Tant Sannie is wealthy – after all she owns a farm – and it’s not long before he’s thrown the narrow-minded, but simple woman into an amorous whirl. His motives are all too obvious to the children and he makes enemies of them. Worst of all, he connives to get Otto fired by lying to Tant Sannie. Otto returns to his room where he dies.

The festival line-up includes Lost in Translation, 21 Grams, In America, Evelyn and more. Tickets can be booked at the Mall’s box office. See the programme on www.sterkinekor.co.za