Proteus

South Africa, Canada

2003

103 Min

Color

1.78:1

Afrikaans, Dutch, English

Currently 2.6/5 Stars.
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PROD Damon D'Oliveira, John Greyson, Anita Lee, Jack Lewis, Steven Markovitz, Platon Trakoshis

CAST Shaun Smyth, Neil Sandilands, Rouxnet Brown, Kristen Thomson, Tessa Jubber, Terry Norton, Adrienne Pierce, Grant Swanby, Brett Goldin

MUSIC Don Pyle, Andrew Zealley

SOUND Dieter Keck

Berlinale (Panorama), Outfest (Features)

Synopsis

A recreation of the decade-long love affair in the 18th century in a Cape Town penal colony on Robben Island. The two lovers were a Dutch sailor imprisoned there for sodomy and a young Khoi herder. The Khoi were part of the Hottentot tribal group and as such were the untouchables of that time. The two were placed on trial and this love affair and the legal battles are the grist of Greyson and Lewis’ film based partly on court transcripts from the time. In South Africa, during the 1700s, sodomy was a crime deemed worse than murder, and the fact that these two young men had indulged in it was also complicated by the fact that this was an interracial love affair. –IMDb

Director

John Greyson

Born in Nelson, British Columbia on 13.3.1960. He is co-publisher of a gay and lesbian media handbook. His fea- ture film debut, Zero Patience was an international success. In 2009 his film Fig Trees screened in the Berlinale’s Panorama section. –Berlinale