The Lost Carts of the Karoo (2019)

The Lost Carts of the Karoo is a short documentary following the Louw family as they leave a lifetime on the road, and settle into the modern world on the edges of the small Karoo town of Colesberg, South Africa.

Made over seven years, the film chronicles the final days of Oupa Lodewyk Slinger, one of the last Karretjie Mense.

This project is supported by award-winning South African playwright, Athol Fugard: This project will be, to my reckoning, an important contribution to a body of artistic and scholarly work that seeks to give a voice to marginalized peoples in South Africa. Its great strength in this regard is that it tells the individual story of a family, and thereby resists the temptation to generalize lived experience. For too long has South Africa focused on its dominant narratives, and ignored the stories on the edges. This project, with its focus on the karretjie people of the Karoo, attempts to do just that and, as such, deserves all the support it can get.

FESTIVALS:

Award: Shnit Worldwide Shortfilmfestival - "Made in South Africa" Audience Award (South Africa) 2019.

Official Selections: Silicon Valley African Film Festival (USA) 2019 , Lift-Off Global Network First-time Filmmaker (UK) 2019, .

ONLINE STORIES:

The poorest of the poor: The Karretjie Mense of the Great Karoo by Timothy Gabb

The Karoo's dwindling cart people still hear the call of the road by Daneel Knoetze

CREDITS:

A film by Timothy Gabb

CAST

Oupa Lodewyk Slingers

Ouma Sina Louw

Isak Louw

Hanneline Louw

Salman Louw

Poppie Swarts

CREW:

Timothy Gabb

Russell Bruns

Christo du Toit

Daneel Knoetze

Adam Little

Jonathan Cornelius

Karen Wieffering

Alex Noble

SOUND:

Gustav Stutterheim

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:

Timothy Gabb

Caroline Gabb

Gustav Stutterheim

Jonathan Cornelius

David Mostert

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Professor Michael de Jongh

Riana Steyn

Richard Wicksteed

ARCHIVE FOOTAGE:

What Happened to the Donkey People? Third Degree by Charlene Stanley (2005)

Bou van 'n Nasie (1938)

MUSIC (Creative Commons) :

Kyle Preston - Rise

Kevin MacLeod - Calming

Kevin MacLeod - Clean Soul

Kyle Preston - A Sea Change

Additional media:

Go Magazine story

The Neck - Garings Outspan

In the early 1990s more than a thousand karretjie mense eked out a living as nomadic sheep shearers trekking across the Great Karoo.

That way of life is now lost because their artisanal skills, in the face of mechanisation, are not needed. But the karretjie people, who have always lived on the margins, remain and survive on the veld, odd jobs and social grants.

This is a family who lives 50kms away from the nearest town, living between a national road and a farmer's boundary fence.