Marigolds in August / The Guest: Two Screenplays

Two screenplays from two of South Africa's preeminent artists

In Marigolds in August, we meet three men navigating the racial inequities of employment in Apartheid South Africa. Daan, a Black South African, works as a gardener at a whites-only resort. He is poor, but his meager earnings keep him afloat and alive. Cut to Melton, an unemployed Black man who is desperate for work. Daan is hesitant to help Melton--while he is employed, his citizenship papers are no longer valid, and he does not want to risk his own safety to help anyone. Tensions rise, forcing Paulus, a white snake catcher, to intervene as an unwilling mediator.

The Guest is a portrait of Eugène Nielen Marais--writer, dissident, and one of the founders of Afrikaans literature. The screenplay outlines Marais's months-long stay at a remote farm, where he sought a way out of his morphine addiction.