Wanted: white teenager to 'go to the army' in new movie

After struggling to find a lead actor for their new movie‚ producer Eric Abraham and director Oliver Hermanus have decided to broaden their search with nationwide auditions.

The young man they’re looking for will be between 16 and 20 and white. That’s because the film is set in 1981 and tells the story of Nicholas‚ a teenager conscripted into the apartheid South African Defence Force.

Describing the untitled movie as a “defiant coming-of-age story”‚ Hermanus and Abraham said it would span the lead character’s two years in the army‚ culminating in a tour to the Angolan border.

Hermanus said he wanted to tell “a hidden story of the generation of marginalised white men who had to endure the apartheid propaganda machine”.

He added: “For many‚ their conscription into the army destroyed them because it forcibly imprinted upon nearly one million white boys a diseased ideology of white supremacy‚ racial intolerance and the desire to eradicate homosexuality and communism from South African society.”

Even though he is part of the “ruling race”‚ Nicholas’s life is at risk in the events portrayed by the movie‚ he said.

“He is property of the state‚ there to defend the indefensible without question or resistance. He is commanded to relinquish himself to the cause of the government which could so easily lead to his death.

“The war he is fighting is ultimately pointless and the lives lost are lost in vain. The terror that was inflicted on the innocent was racially motivated and in the end no side could claim true victory.

“Our story is Nicholas’s journey to overcome‚ not without loss and suffering but in the end with an acceptance of who he is in the ‘new South Africa’. This is a film about how white South African men have been made for nearly a century.”

The film is being made by Portobello Productions‚ the London company owned by Abraham — also the owner of The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town. Portobello has two “best foreign language film” Oscars to its credit‚ for “Ida” and “Kolya”.

The new movie will be Hermanus’s fourth. His most recent‚ “The Endless River” (2015)‚ was the first South African film to premier in competition at the Venice Film Festival. “Skoonheid” (2011) won the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival and was South Africa’s 2012 submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Abraham and Hermanus said anyone interested in auditioning can contact the casting director at oliverhermanusfilm@gmail.com or 079-380-5803.

“We are very excited to be looking for undiscovered new talent in our country. This is an amazing opportunity for anyone who is interested in pursuing an acting career‚” said Hermanus.