Alison's horror story now an inspiring film

20 May 2016 - 08:21 By AZIZZAR MOSUPI

It was a crime that shocked the country - a woman stabbed 37 times, raped, disembowelled and slashed 17 times in the neck.This is the story of Alison Botha, attacked and left for dead in 1994 by two men in Port Elizabeth, a few kilometres from her home.Now, 22 years later, her story is to be told in the film Alison the Movie, featuringbudding Capetonian actress Christia Visser, who plays Botha."To this day, I get goose-pimples thinking about the story and I'm honoured to be the one entrusted with it," said producer and director Uga Carlini.Carlini, 41, is renowned in the theatre for telling heroine-driven stories and says there aren't enough of them.The film, on which production began in 2011, was completed in November and is scheduled for showing at the Dances in Films festival in Los Angeles next month - a first for a South African film.With the motto "Defiantly independent since 1998", the festival is geared solely at independent filmmakers. The on-screen and production teams of all films must be Hollywood "unknowns".Of her portrayal of Alison, 24-year-old Visser said it was difficult because "she's a real person who is still alive and you want to tell the story accurately".Botha says Visser's portrayal of her is well done."She has the right feeling - [the attack] was very surreal and almost spiritual and she's got it right," Botha said.A revamped version of her book - I Have Life: Alison's Journey - with an extra "catch-up" chapter, will be released to coincide with the movie's release.Botha says she has learned that the strength of the human spirit is boundless and timeless ."It sounds odd to say, but when I speak about [the attack] I don't relive it."Botha gives public lectures on her experience."I actually get more attached to the effect [of her narration], and the message at the end and the way it affects people."Horrible things happen to us but, in the end, our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we respond to what happens to us. Life goes on."Alison the Movie will be shown at Nu Metro cinemas during Women's Month from August 12...

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