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Bookmark this pageMarigolds in August (1979)
Director: Ross Devenish
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
An examination of the 'invisibility' of blacks in South Africa caused by conditioned white indifference; an invisibility which means poverty and unemployment. The film is set in and around Schoenmakerskop, an opulently sleepy, immaculately manicured whites-only seaside hamlet just outside Port Elizabeth, scriptwriter Athol Fugard's home town. Its central characters all have their real-life counterparts: Daan (Ntshona), the crafty, suspicious but fundamentally good-natured jobbing gardener, jealously protecting his economic lifeline; Melton (Kani), desperately and stubbornly courageous as he searches for work; and Paulus Olifant (Fugard), a nomadic snake-catcher, scavenger and bush-philosopher. All, in one way or another, are outlawed by white society, and gradually realise that this makes them brothers. A powerful, pessimistic, but bracing film.Author: SC
Cast & crew
Director: Ross Devenish
Producer: Jonathan Joel Cohen, Mark Forstater
Cast: Winston Ntshona, John Kani, Athol Fugard, Joyce Hesha, Abel Ntshinga, Nomonde Mhlobiso full cast
Duration: 87 mins
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