Helena Kriel
Helena Kriel (19**-) Actress, playwright, filmmaker, director
Contents
Biography
She was born and brought up in Johannesburg, she graduated with a BA Honours in Drama from the Witwatersrand University, as the top actress and overall top directing student of her year.
Six weeks after the success of her play I Can't Wait to Tie You to the Sofa, she left for a writers’ programme hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles, and seven months later she won the prestigious Steven Spielberg Diane Thomas Award[1].for her first screenplay, Virtuoso, and stayed on in Hollywood.
She later wrote the book Meditating with Rhinos (2020) after her career had stagnated during the in 2007 writer's strike and her marriage had fallen apart.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
Stage work
She wrote or co-wrote the plays Pigs on Passion, Arachnid, K+M+B, I Can't Wait to Tie You to the Sofa (Arena, Windybrow, March 1990);
Film work
She co-wrote the screenplays for Tsotsi, Skin (2008), One Night (2001) and wrote Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
She acted in Pigs on Passion, Beirut, Rising Storm (1988), The Head Hunter (1989)
Sources
Various entries in the NELM catalogue.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0471247/
Karel van der Vyver. 2021. "Helena Kriel on what sparked the writing of her book, ‘Meditating with Rhinos’" In the Daily Maverick 6 January[2]
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