Set in the turbulent 1960's, Apartheid South Africa, BLACK BUTTERFLIES is based on the story of one of the countries most revered poets, Ingrid Jonker.  Ingrid's brilliant writings were coupled with a fragile emotional and mental state that ultimately leads to her untimely death by suicide.

The Making of the Movie

"The death of poets sends a dark tone ringing out over the world. Of all the children of man they are the strangest, the most beloved, disturbing and beyond reach. To all times the holy ones. They are not buried with their bodies, but remain to shake and confuse us, to awaken the living, their language universal; and among these Ingrid Jonker"

A Crown of Wild Olive, Jack Cope, 1966

THE INSPIRATION & CRAFTING A SCREENPLAY
When Nelson Mandela read Ingrid Jonker's Die Kind wat doodgeskiet is deur soldate by Nyanga (The Child shot by soldiers at Nyanga) during his first address in the new South African parliament on May 24^th 1994 he called her, "...an Afrikaner woman who transcended a particular experience and became a South African, an African and a citizen of the world," adding "She was both a poet and a South African. She was both an Afrikaner and an African. She was both an artist and a human being. In the midst of despair, she celebrated hope. Confronted by death, she asserted the beauty of life."
Dutch producer Arry Voorsmit first came across Ingrid Jonker whilst working for public television in Holland when she saw the footage of Mandela reciting her poem, "We then saw a documentary on Dutch Television and came to realise how special, how important, idiosyncratic, individual and unique she was."
Simone Jonker, Ingrid's daughter now 53, says, "Since Mandela made that speech in parliament I think more people became aware of her, there are people who have her poems tattooed on their backs, people who say that her poems mean more than the verses in the Bible and even those who say she speaks to them from the grave."
It would take eight years to bring "Black Butterflies" to the screen, and the first step was engaging a South African screenwriter to tell the story.  After Jonker's death in 1965, the Master of the Court awarded copyrights and control of her literary estate to Jack Cope. He established the Ingrid Jonker Trust and remained a trustee until his death in 1991 when his own papers and journals joined those of Jonker's at the National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown.
South African screenwriter Gregg Latter ("Goodbye Bafana", "Forgiveness") who was swept away by the boldness of Jonker's poetry recalls going through the papers , "I went there and sat in a drab little room while someone with special gloves brought me Cope's diaries. Jack was the kind of guy who wrote a page a day. I sat there reading his inner most feelings about Ingrid - I couldn't have had a better insight into her even if she had told me about herself. Here was a man trying to fathom her out, giving me complete access to the incredibly complicated wild spirit of Ingrid Jonker."
Latter says the honesty and detail even revealed moments such as when they first made love, "In the first year it was very romantic - he called her 'my sweet pea' then after a year he would refer to her as 'hell'. On some days as you turned the page there would just be one word written 'AWFUL' - he had had such a terrible time with her. She was a very difficult person to be with and yet he felt he couldn't be without her."
Latter found out about the principal characters in her life many of whom had passed away, then he wrote up a chronology of events and what he calls "a bland biographical narrative" as he strived to get into the hearts and minds of the characters in the story of Jonker's life. "The more I investigated her I realised this was the story of a woman who was at odds with the male forces in her life. Primarily because of her father who was a big presence - he too was an author in his own right. Although she claimed he wrote books and not novels. He was a journeyman when it came to writing as opposed to an artist."
He relied on documentaries and books for additional research and obviously drew from her vivid poetry. "The sea and water is a constant metaphor as are butterflies. I made the sea a recurring image - as though the sea was waiting for her."
But it was Cope's diaries that proved the most formidable asset as well as the memories of some, for example Michael Cope, Jack's son, who remembered Jonker's presence from his childhood, "Jack was divorced and the children would come and visit him and Ingrid at the Clifton Bungalow," says Latter, "Michael said whenever she came into a place which was environmentally ordered when she left, she left it in chaos- chaos in every sense, physical, emotional and spiritual chaos."
When Oscar-nominated director Paula van der Oest came on board the title of the movie was changed from "Smoke and Ochre" ("Rook en Oker" is the title of Jonker's award-winning 1963 collection of poetry) to "Black Butterflies" and the film moved away from an apartheid driven biopic into a feverish insight into the creative mind. Producer Voorsmit says, "The core of the story became this idea that as a human being you have to have a reason to live. There is a need for everybody to express themselves and apartheid is just the background in front of which our story unfolds."
Preparation on the screenplay continued with Latter travelling to Holland to work with van der Oest and the director journeying to Latter's home in the seaside town of Knysna to work with him, "We worked in great detail and when Paula came to work with me I insisted we meet on the beach as the beach and the seafront was so important in Ingrid's life."
Latter and van der Oest crafted the story around the contradictory inner life of Jonker, her chaotic, wild spirit, the powerful and at times destructive influences of men on her destiny and her unbridled challenges to the conservative norms of the time. "She had no shields or masks or defences," says Latter, "That brutal honesty was either repellent to people or they thought it was really fresh. Men were surprised by it, but she was also very beautiful and looked great in a bikini, there was no shyness about her body and her feelings. You must remember it was the 60s and life for a poet could be one big bed in those pre-Aids days. It was the start of a sexual revolution and for Afrikaners like Ingrid this came as a moment of great physical and emotional liberation."
And so the story would also concentrate on the emotions, the sexuality, jealousies, frustrations and deceits of Jonker and all the men in her life, including her father, a Calvinist member of the National Party and chairman of the parliamentary select committee responsible for censorship laws on art, publications and entertainment who would become deeply embarrassed by his daughter's public rebelliousness and eventually reject her.
Simone says, "I think to understand why she had such an influence on people's lives, you have to read her poems. She speaks the language of the heart. She was an incredible figure who lived in difficult times, which left a scar on her life. Although I remember her as happy, I know she was sometimes distressed and confused, and I honestly believe she didn't understand the extent of her own talent."
Latter believes that all great artists are 'in some way incredibly tortured - they allow themselves to feel things honestly, completely honestly no matter that the world is not a very happy place."

THE PLAYERS & THE PRODUCTION
Award-winning Dutch actress Carice van Houten who found worldwide fame in Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" got involved in the project about four years ago and joined discussions with van der Oest and Voorsmit about the project and screenplay. Latter says, "We were so fortunate to have Carice come on board. She's a fantastic choice. She's very comfortable with her body, and physically totally unafraid."
Co-producer Arnold Heslenfeld agrees, "When Carice is on screen it just lights up. We needed to cast Dutch stars to raise the finance but we would have cast van Houten even if she was Australian. She was so right for the part."
In preparation for the role van Houten read Jonker's poetry as well as books about her in English and Afrikaans and researched the politics of the time, "I met a few people who knew her including her daughter, Simone, who reminded me of the responsibility I have in capturing the amazing spirit of her mother."
van Houten says Jonker's strong character was immediately attractive, "I think what was most interesting about the screenplay is both her fear of rejection and her free spirit. She was like a little diamond, very talented and yet all she wanted was the love of her father." Despite the attractions of playing such a passionate, contradictory individual the actresses confesses to some frustrations, "When I first read the script I felt very close to her, but when I started rehearsing the role many times she made me angry. I often fight with my roles, it helps me play them."
She embraced the role, as Rutger Hauer who plays Abraham Jonker, the poetess's abrasive father says, "She's a magnificent actress. I like what she does, I'm like a mess when I work on a character until just before the camera rolls but Carice is very well prepared, she thinks about everything for days."
Director van der Oest agrees, "Characters have to be believable and interesting. Carice tries new things with every take and so she has a complete range of brilliant moments and she's very analytical so all those moments are very, very detailed."
The actress is modest about her working methods, "To me, that's not the most difficult thing. To transform. I don't really see it happen. I don't have the feeling I am transforming, really. I don't believe you can get into somebody's character but more that somebody comes in you. You just use yourself. In everything I play, I feel like it is me. I just say different things on different times and look different."
Next to be cast was Irish actor Liam Cunningham who was hailed as a major discovery after his feature debut in Ken Loach's Palm D'Or winning film "The Wind That Shakes The Barley". Cunningham says he got a call from a casting director about the film and then did some research on Jonker, "I didn't know anything about Ingrid so I googled her and discovered this incredibly interesting, tragic and remarkable woman." Because Latter crafted a lot of the story from Jack Cope's diaries, Cunningham found himself at a thematic centre of the film even though he insists it's Ingrid's story, "When people ask me what it's about I say it is a celebration of an incredibly difficult woman - gifted and talented though she was. The film is not a documentary, it is not chronological and Clarice has been wonderful. Not only has she got to deliver a woman who's had difficulties in her life but also the decisions she made later in her life are bizarre and the film examines how she came to those decisions. That's why the film has universal appeal - it deals with all encompassing themes like love, hate, death, sex and of course marriage."
Legendary Dutch actor Rutger Hauer was immediately drawn to the project because of the power of Jonker's poetry, "It is so strong. She just writes a few words and you just get it." The actor says the film is about 'someone who has a gift of brilliance - a tortured muse," but playing the central part of Ingrid's oppressive father proved a challenge for Hauer, "For my character there was one moment that was just too cruel for me. When he burns the poem in front of his daughter. To me it was like rape. There's some pleasure you can have with a part like this, but sometimes playing a character as conservative and cruel as Abraham can be like torture - the guy is so dry and Paula and I decided to play the subtext to make it subtler. Speech is just ten percent of what we're giving you on screen."
Moving away from a strict biopic and veering from a politically driven 'apartheid' narrative was central to van der Oest's vision of a film that probes into the minds and emotions of this extraordinary woman. Acclaimed cinematographer Giulio Biccari ("U-Carmen e Khayelitsha", "No.1 Ladies Detective Agency') who has shot many politically driven films applauds her grasp of this fascinating life, "Paula is amazing. She really had this genuine commitment to tell a real story. She wasn't bogged down by the history and political context. She wanted to tell a genuine story about an artist in an honest, emotionally connected way."
Together with Biccari and production designer Darryl Hammer van der Oest fashioned a film that concentrated on the people within the frame, "It's set in the sixties," says the director, "but we decided with the creative team that the film is period but not old fashioned so we approached it like a modern piece. We made the costumes a little faded so we could concentrate on the people and with Giulio our concentration was always first and foremost to consider the actors. As we try to get closer into Ingrid's mind so the other characters inform the style of the film."
Michael Auret of Spier Films, the South African producers, was initially approached by Voorsmit in early 2008 and immediately loved the project; "Following in the tradition of our Golden Bear winning "U-Carmen e Khayelitsha", "Black Butterflies" is another film which celebrates the artistic heritage of South Africa with which Spier Films is proud to be associated."  The company also recently finished production on the film version of Athol Fugard's "Master Harold and the Boys", another example of South African literary excellence brought to the big screen.
What sets "Black Butterflies" apart is that it's not a history, nor a biography, says Auret, instead it's a cinematic journey into the minds of the greatest poet of her generation, a film about a person who was driven as much by genius as by torment.

INGRID JONKER: Her Spirit and Her Words.
In Jack Cope's piece 'A Crown of Wild Olive' from "In Memoriam: Ingrid Jonker" he says, "She was no self-conscious writer and was in a way dazed, bemused by the voice in her, and what sources, what anguish, what exaltation of spirit sang through her she seemed not to know with any assurance."
Poet Uys Krige wrote a eulogy for Jonker's funeral which was later published in the Sunday Times, in it he writes, "Ingrid had something of her own, peculiarly her own, her own distance, individuality and personality. And it is this individual tone, this personal voice that marks the true poet. The best poems of Ingrid you recognise almost at once. And they keep on singing in your mind or echoing in your consciousness. For Ingrid was a real lyrical poet -- of a freshness, a pristineness and a purity and also of a gaiety, a humour, that were again particularly her own."
As Jack Cope wrote of her, "It has been said for and against her that she was many things: that for all her luminous mind and awareness she was childlike and immature - she was childlike. That she was little educated, unintellectual - she was no intellectual. That she was careless of appearances, bohemian, rebellious - she was a rebel and more. That she deserted her faith, her people, her volk - she was no deserter but a discoverer. That knowing no distinction between life and poetry she betrayed both. Her life was an affirmation as well as a denial."
The truthful, blinding immediacy of poetry and her embrace of that spirit makes Ingrid Jonker a febrile, infectious character to bring to the screen so that viewer's can perhaps feel as Simone, Ingrid's daughter, does today, "I feel uplifted that the world will get to know her work and what she stood for. Her poems mean everything to me. She is the anchor of my life. I read her poems every day, the poems live and every day they give me hope and inspiration."

PAULA VAN DER OEST (DIRECTOR)
2008 - Wijster Born in 1965 in the small Dutch village of Laag-Soeren, van der Oest is one of Holland's most sensitive and award-winning filmmakers. With Zinderend her graduation film from the Dutch Film and Television Academy in 1988 she won the prestigious Canon Award from the Norwegian Film Academy.
After working as an assistant director for several years she returned as a director for VPRO, the Netherlands public broadcaster. Whilst there she directed the series Lolamoviola as well as the films Achilles en het zebrapad and Coma, which won a Golden Calf for best television drama.
De nieuwe moeder, her 1996 feature film debut, a road movie about a man searching for another mother for his child, was widely acclaimed, nominated for a Golden Calf for Best Film and scooped the Holland Film Award for Best Film. In 2001 van der Oest moved into the mainstream with "Zus & Co," a loose adaptation of Chekhov's The Three Sisters, which became the sixth Dutch film ever to be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar. The release of the film led Time magazine to dub van der Oest as the "Woody Allen of Amsterdam".
She followed this praise with the English fairytale/thriller Moonlight the following year, which won the Hollywood Discovery Award for Best European Feature and the Youth Jury Award at the Nederland's Film Festival. Other films include Madame Jeanette set in Amsterdam's Suriname community which was a box-office hit and Verborgen gebreken, based on the novel by feminist author Renate Dorrestein about a bereaved elderly woman who shelters a pair of kids on the run from an abusive family.

GREG LATTER (SCREENPLAY)
Award-winning scriptwriter Greg Latter graduated from Wits University in 1982 with a BA (Drama)in Directing, Acting and writing. The following year, he starred in "City of Blood" (1983), starting an acting career which has spanned over 20 years and over 30 feature films. 
In 1987, Latter received his first credit as a writer and two decades on, he is the most prolific and successful South African scriptwriter. With over sixteen feature films produced, he is best known for penning "Goodbye Bafana" (2007) the story of Nelson Mandela's racist guard which starred Josheph Fiennes and Diane Kruger and "Forgiveness" (2004), the award-winning South African film about truth and reconciliation. Latter directed his first feature "End of the Road" for MNET and wrote the stage play "Death of a Colonialist" which was showing in Johannesburg earlier this year.

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