Die Laaste Woord
Die Laaste Woord ("The Last Word") can refer any one of two South African media works:
Contents
Die Laaste Woord, an animated film by Diek Grobler
The original text
Referred to as a poësiefliek ("poetry film"), it is an, as yet incomplete, animated interpretation of Vanishing voices a short Afrikaans poem by Martjie Bosman[1], inspired by Vanishing Voices: The extinction of the world's languages (Oxford University Press, 2000)[2], an award-winning study by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine. On the poem she contemplates the loneliness of someone who has become the last speaker of a dying language. It is Bosman's response to the perceived threat that her own mother tongue, Afrikaans and the culture attached to it, may disappear.
In the film, animator Diek Grobler creates a character who literally is the last speaker of a dying language, who goes through the world, seeking someone who can still understand her.
The idea for the film was first posted by Grobler on his Facebook page in 2016, and was selected as a concept to be pitched at the Mifa pitching session at the Annecy International Animation Festival in France on 11-16 June, 2018.
According to Grobler's later Facebook entry, the film was due for completion by the end of 2019, combining traditional and digital animation techniques such as cut-outs, drawing on paper, and 2D digital animation effects. However, in an interview with Laetitia Pople in 2021, he indicated that he could only obtain financing for it in 2020 so he hoped to have it completed by the end of 2021.
Translations and adaptations
Performance history in South Africa
Sources
Beeld, 24 April 2018.
Go to ESAT Bibliography
Die Laaste Woord, a radio play by Lee Doubell
The original text
A radio play that explores the evolution of performed performed language over the course of two centuries, beginning with the start of of radio-recordings in 1938, then considers where we are in 2021 and then looks ahead at 2138 and how things would or could be then. The play approaches this history through by offering a fictional radio reading of Eugène Marais' famous poem Winternag ("winter night") from each of these periods.
Translations and adaptations
Performance history in South Africa
2021: Broadcast on Radio Sonder Grense on 13 Mei 2021, directed by Johan Rademan with Rolanda Marais, Jacques Bessenger and Deon Lotz. Acoustic design by Cassi Lowers.
Sources
https://www.rsgplus.org/donderdagaand-die-laaste-woord/
Go to ESAT Bibliography
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