Ingrid Jonker Script

Black Butterfly is a film based on sixties poetess Ingrid Jonker. Her life was charged with emotion, turbulence, poetic finesse and tragedy. This creates content for the riveting script written by Knysna-based Greg Latter. The film is a German-South African co-production and boasts some celebrity actors/actresses, mostly based in Amsterdam, Holland. Ingrid is played by Carice van Houten, a sought after actress who is the cream of the crop in the European film industry, and has also acted with Tom Cruise in the movie Valkerie.
When I read the script to the movie a few months before production I was taken by the moving and yet short existence of the poet herself. She was a genius with words but struggled with the burden of childhood and "father issues". This is well portrayed in the script as it traces the consequences of growing up in a problematic nucleus family and an even more problematic South Africa. Ingrid was a left-wing white liberal and was furthermore an artist; which all made her a deeply sensitive and humane individual. So she crumbled under the weight of her oppresive father, who symbolised the status quo at the time (himself working for the government), and the equally oppressive head of the family.
What really gives the script depth is the fact that these two oppressive forces make the movie's focus not so much about race, as about the human condition. Issues of gender, class, race, sex and the law are subtley explored with Ingrid as an active agent. It is an even bigger wonder that this script is based on a true story because it reveals the inner workings of humans living under suppression and critically explores the body politic. All of this in one human being?!
The emotions that the script conjures will create base for this riveting movie that is still in production. I will keep you updated on how production goes and the different locations we visit.

Watch the space...