WINDHOEK
As part of the tenth anniversary celebrations of “African Perspectives”, AfricAvenir Windhoek is to rescreens Andrew Worsdale’s “Durban Poison” (South Africa, 2013) next Wednesday at the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre (FNCC).
The film features in the male lead role Brandon Auret, known from his role in District 9. The film was produced in 2013, by Karoo Film Company and is in English and some Afrikaans with English subtitles. Durban Poison tells the story of Charmaine Phillips and Piet Grundlingh, South Africa’s own Bonnie and Clyde. Durban Poison was almost made in 1988. Everything but the filming itself was completed before investors pulled out.
After the Namibian Premiere in 2014, AfricAvenir offers now viewers a second chance to watch this work of art.
Inspired by a true story, Durban Poison is a road movie that follows a police investigation into four murders and charts the doomed romance of outlaw lovers. It is an expose of a relationship between two lovers whose passionate affair self-destructed; they ended up as serial-killers, South Africa’s version of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, killing four people in a game of sex for money. Told in flashback the film follows the culprits and the police as they return to the scenes of the crime. Moving between the present and the past, the film is a tale of murder and romance, of truth and lies, of memory and regret so the audience isn’t clear until the climax who is guilty but meanwhile have become complicit witnesses of a powerful, combustible romance.
The film won Best South African feature film at the 2013 Durban International Film Festival. At the 3rd Luxor African Film Festival in March 2014, Jim Neversink, first time film composer of the musical score of Durban Poison won a special jury prize for his work on the movie. Entrance to the screening is N$30.