A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Krugersdorp, South Africa
Born:
January 1, 1945
Died:
January 1, 1993
Van Rensburg, born in Krugersdorp in 1945, was never easy to categorize. He was described in 1983 in the Cape Argus as “a director with the talent and skill that could eventually put him with the ranks of the world’s best”; and South African film historian Martin Botha describes his development as a filmmaker as the chronicler of “the Afrikaner psyche during three significant periods: firstly, the 1930s and the trauma of urbanization; secondly, the revival of Afrikaner nationalism in the 1940s; and thirdly, the modern urban Afrikaner of the 1970s and 1980s”. Van Rensburg was obsessed with film from an early age. He bought his first movie camera at age 14 with his earnings as a church organist. In 1969, after a stint at Potchefstroom University, Van Rensburg formed his own film company, Visio Films. He was 22. He started with R140 in the bank, and directed Freddie’s in Love, a film described by Botha as one having “avant garde tendencies”. Undeterred, Van Rensburg moved on to make Die Bankrower (The Bank Robber), a competent thriller that received positive notices from the critic. There was no letup in Van Rensburg’s passion to make films. When television finally made its appearance in South Africa in 1976, he turned to this medium as an outlet for his considerable talents. But his relationship with the State broadcaster was cut after he accompanied 52 prominent South Africans when they traveled to Dakar in 1987 to talk with the then banned ANC. Van Rensburg received many awards for his work inside South Africa, and also abroad. “His films,” says Botha, “explore the psyche of the Afrikaner within an historical as well as a contemporary context. He is preoccupied with communication problems between people, especially within love relationships. The outsider is a dominant figure in his universe. By studying Van Rensburg’s oeuvre, one realizes that he is probably South Africa’s most prominent contemporary auteur director.” He formed friendships with people like Jans Rautenbach and Van Zyl Slabbert, yet his life was consistently enigmatic and sad. His marriage to actress Grethe Fox failed. He broke his back and was confined to a wheelchair. And at the end of 1993 he committed suicide, an act still clouded in mystery. —kwailawai.blogspot.co.uk
Director:
1971 Freddie's in Love
1973 The Bank Robber
1974 Geluksdal
1975 The Square
1982 The Horse Smuggler
1983 Anna Meintjies
1984 The Lighthouse
1986 Heroes
1987 The Mantis Project
1990 The Fourth Reich
1990 The Native Who Caused All the Trouble
1991 Taxi to Soweto
Editor:
1969 Danie Bosman: The Story of the Greatest South African composer
1971 Freddie's in Love
1973 The Bank Robber
1974 Geluksdal
1975 The Square
1982 The Horse Smuggler
1983 Anna Meintjies
1984 The Lighthouse
1986 Heroes
1987 The Mantis Project
1990 The Fourth Reich
1990 The Native Who Caused All the Trouble
1991 Taxi to Soweto
Producer:
1969 Danie Bosman: The Story of the Greatest South African composer
1971 Freddie's in Love
1973 The Bank Robber
1974 Geluksdal
1975 The Square
1982 The Horse Smuggler
1983 Anna Meintjies
1984 The Lighthouse
1986 Heroes
1987 The Mantis Project
1990 The Fourth Reich
1990 The Native Who Caused All the Trouble
1991 Taxi to Soweto
Writer:
1969 Danie Bosman: The Story of the Greatest South African composer
1971 Freddie's in Love
1973 The Bank Robber
1974 Geluksdal
1975 The Square
1982 The Horse Smuggler
1983 Anna Meintjies
1984 The Lighthouse
1986 Heroes
1987 The Mantis Project
1990 The Fourth Reich
1990 The Native Who Caused All the Trouble
1991 Taxi to Soweto
Creator:
1983 Wasted Spring
Director:
1976 Willem
1983 Wasted Spring
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.