Dir: Martyn le Roux
South Africa, 179 minutes
Star: Francois Coertze, Chantelle Werth, Wikus de Kock, Hayley Pieters
A paranormal investigator, George Coetzee, gets a tip from a bar fly the Tankwa Karoo, a very desolate area in South Africa. He decides to investigate. After a narrow escape with a Cape cobra, he wakes up in a dilapidated dwelling with only one occupant, a beautiful and very mysterious girl, that lives there all by herself. After saving his life and despite her best efforts to get rid of him, George insists on digging deeper into her life and opens up a Pandora’s Box he can’t close again. What he finds is not what he expected…
Director statement
So many stories to tell, so little time. The story of Die Pelsloper / The Skinwalker, came to me in a hotel room at three in the morning. I just had to tell it, for it was a different story from all the many cliché versions of the werewolf myth I’ve seen in my life. Nothing like it has ever been attempted in South Africa, least of all in Afrikaans! So I set out to produce this film with zero everything. Zero budget, zero equipment, crew or actors. Didn’t even have a camera! But then things just started happening, and people gave of their time and talents to tell the story of Samantha and her cursed life. It was produced over a period of two years under very difficult circumstances in South Africa, in an economy where, every day, things were collapsing just a bit more. But we did it. I hope we can inspire others to tell their stories as well no matter how impossible it might seem…
Trailer
Why we picked it
Horror-romance is a troubling combination. Need we say anything except: Twilight? But, despite qualms, we found ourselves gradually drawn in by this. It has its own pace, its own rhythm and is certainly unique – by the end, we cared about the characters and their fate far more than expected.