PROTEUS

Proteus Canada/South Africa

'Proteus is an exquisite period piece that skillfully explores the intersections of sex, race and politics.' -Toronto International Film Festival

Acclaimed Canadian filmmaker John Greyson (Lilies, MIFF 1997) and co-director Jack Lewis take audiences to 18th century South Africa, telling the passionate (true) story of two men caught in an unjust system rife with racism, homophobia and cruelty. But this is no standard period piece, rather it's a vibrant and sensual film full of typically Greyson flourishes and which speaks passionately about doomed love, apartheid in the 1950s and the cruel effects of colonisation.

A young, native Bushman, Claas Blank, is arrested for theft and unjustly imprisoned to hard labour on Robben Island. There he meets two men: Dutch sailor and fellow inmate Rijkhaart Jacobsz and Virgil Niven, an English botanist who tends the prison gardens. Niven enlists Blank's help in cultivating the native protea plant for the European market, and slowly develops more intimate feelings for the prisoner. Blank, meanwhile, begins a tentative affair with Jacobsz, contravening social and cultural taboos. Stealing private moments together, the two men's passion increases in fervour, right under the nose of Niven.

D/S John Greyson, Jack Lewis P Steven Markovitz, Anita Lee, Platon Trakoshis WS Horizon Entertainment TD 35mm/Col/2003/100mins

John Greyson was born in London, UK in 1960. Films include: Zero Patience (1994), Uncut (MIFF 1998), Law of Enclosures (MIFF 2001).

Jack Lewis was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1955. Films inlcude: Goniwe's Sacrifices (2004).