Jannie Raath

Jannie Raath (1922-2002) was a film distributor and one-off producer.

Biography

Johannes Lodewicus (Jannie) Raath was born on 10 June 1922. When, in 1951, Jamie Uys had trouble getting his first film Daar Doer in die Bosveld distributed, Jannie Raath came to his rescue. He organised screenings throughout the country and subsequently acted as producer on Uys’s next film 50-50 (1953). Prior to this he had imported a number of prestigious Italian productions into South Africa, amongst them a number of opera films. At one stage there were plans to dub these films into Afrikaans, but there is no evidence that this ever happened. Professionally he was a music instructor and the Jannie Raath Music College in Pretoria offered lessons in learning to play the piano, the organ, the piano accordion and even the zither. In 1984 he took part in a 12-hour non-stop public exhibition of playing the electric organ at the Menlyn Park shopping centre. He died on 15 September 2002.

Sources

Le Roux, André I. & Fourie, Lilla – Filmverlede: geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse speelfilm (1982)

Rand Daily Mail (various issues)

Sunday Times (various issues)

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