Variations on a Theme, South Africa’s entry for international film consideration, has garnered recognition on the festival circuit following its Tiger Award win at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film later screened at the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, where it was described as featuring “a poetic and distinctive visual style” that examines themes of resilience and community.
The film centers on Ouma Hettie, an elderly goat herder in South Africa’s Kamiesberge region, who becomes entangled in a financial scam involving false reparation claims related to her father’s unpaid labor during World War II. Her family’s increasing involvement in the situation drives the narrative forward. Co-writer and director Devon Delmar, along with fellow writer-director Jason Jacobs, crafted the project with intentional artistic choices regarding its structure and pacing.
Delmar explained that the film’s musical and rhythmic qualities stem from careful observation of the village setting where Jacobs grew up and where the story takes place. The directors sought to capture the natural routines and patterns of daily life in the community. Delmar noted that understanding these ingrained rhythms revealed what he described as “the musicality of the space.” The title Variations on a Theme reflects this emphasis on repetition, drawing parallels between contemporary exploitation occurring in the village and historical patterns of abuse spanning generations.
To ensure visual consistency with their thematic intentions, the filmmakers employed an unconventional approach: Microsoft Excel. Delmar joked that the film may be unique in being written using the spreadsheet software, with five columns representing story days and 30 shots arranged to repeat in a structured pattern. The creative team drew additional inspiration from Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, whose formulaic compositional approach served as a model for developing the film from a single core concept that unfolds gradually throughout the narrative.
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