- The Story of an African Farm (film)
Infobox Film | name = The Story of an African Farm
director =David Lister
producer = Ross Garland
Bonnie Rodini
Cindy Rodkin
writer = Thandi Brewer
Bonnie RodiniOlive Schreiner (novel)
starring =Richard E. Grant Armin Mueller-Stahl
music = J.B. Arthur
cinematography = Peter Tischhauser
editing = Josh Galvin
distributor =Freestyle Releasing
released = flagicon|France14 May ,2004 (premiere atCannes Film Festival
flagicon|South Africa8 October ,2004
flagicon|USA3 June ,2005 (limited)
runtime = 97 min
country = flagicon|South AfricaSouth Africa
language = English
imdb_id = 0388441"The Story of an African Farm" is based on the 1883 novel by South African author,
Olive Schreiner . The setting is a farm on the slopes of a Karoo Kopje, South Africa, during the 1870's. Fat Tant Sannie (Karin van der Laag) looks after her charges, the sweet Em (Anneke Weidemann) and the independent Lyndall (Kasha Kropinski), with a strict Biblical hand - it was Em's father's dying wish. Gentle Otto (Armin Mueller-Stahl ), the farm manager, runs the farm and cares for Waldo, his son. Waldo (Luke Gallant) is bright, and busy building a model of a sheep-shearing machine that he hopes will make them all rich. Things change when the sinister, eccentric Bonaparte Blenkins (Richard E. Grant ) with bulbous nose and chimney pot hat arrives. Their childhood is disrupted by the bombastic Irishman who claims blood ties with Wellington and Queen Victoria and so gains uncanny influence over the girls' gross stupid stepmother, Tant Sannie.As the story of Lyndall, Em and Waldo unfolds to its touching end, we learn not merely of a backwater in colonial history, but of the whole human condition.
Olive Schreiner's intense story of three children living in the African veldt has often been compared to Emily Brontë's
Wuthering Heights . Wildly controversial at publication (1883) because of its feminist sentiments, the story has remained a touching and often wickedly funny portrayal of life on a late Victorian farm in South Africa.External links
*imdb title|0388441
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