Andries A. Pienaar

(b. Broederstroom, 23/08/1894 - d. Bloemhof, 30/04/1979). Author, filmmaker, game warden. Andries Albertus Pienaar, better known under his writer’s pseudonym of Sangiro, was born on 23 August 1894 in Broederstroom near Pretoria. In 1907 his parents joined a small group of Afrikaners who, after the end of the South African War, had settled in German East Africa. He came back to South Africa in 1913 to attend school in Heidelberg and then studied first at the University of Stellenbosch and then in Germany. He occasionally returned to what is now Tanzania, notably as the leader of a 1925 German film expedition financed by UFA on the strength of the popularity of the German translation of his book Uit Oerwoud en Vlakte. According to his Rolprentavonture, he was unhappy with the resulting documentary, entitled Kilimanjaro, and with his brother Danie returned two years later to shoot Shaitani (1928). Unfortunately the book never mentions the titles of these two films and the two German cameramen who shot the first documentary are never clearly identified.

Subsequently he was involved in the making of Die Bou van ‘n Nasie for African Film Productions, a history of (white) South Africa that was produced to be ready for the opening of the Voortrekker Monument in 1938. He is credited as co-director, together with Joseph Albrecht, worked on the story and the historical research, and apparently acts in it as a spokesman for the Uitlanders. In 1942 this was followed by Lig van ‘n Eeu, a feature for Utolo Films made on the occasion of the centenary of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk in the Transvaal. In 1947 he was appointed the first full-time game warden in Etosha. He died on 30 April 1979 on his farm near Bloemhof in what is now the North West Province. The Elmo de Witt film The Last Lion (1972) was based on his book Uit Oerwoud en Vlakte. He twice won the Hertzog Prize for Prose, in 1927 (for Diamantkoors en Twee Fortuinsoekers) and in 1945 (for his entire oeuvre). (FO)

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