The story revolves a group of school-leavers who descend on a tiny coastal town to celebrate their freedom. It is clearly inspired by the Rage festival that goes down in December ever year at various South African coastal resort towns, in an annual display of drunken and disorderly behaviour by teenagers who have just completed their final year of school.
Roxy, Sihle, Kyle, Leon, Tamsyn and Neo party on the beach and drink themselves silly every night. Two townsfolk, Hermien and her son Albert, are welcoming – too welcoming. To make matters even weirder, the 70-something Hermien is heavily pregnant.
On a psychedelic trip on the beach, the friends witness a disturbing birth ritual, which could be a hallucination, or not. Soon, fertility figurines start to appear at random places. What is supposed to be the best holiday of their lives, turns to horror as the teenagers are picked off … one by one.
Rage is directed by Jaco Bouwer, a multi-award-winning theatre director who’s one of three Best Director nominees in the drama series category at the 2020 SAFTAs, for Dwaalster. His short film, this country is lonely, premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2018. He also directed Die Spreeus, one of the 10 most-watched local series on Showmax in 2019.
Nicole Fortuin, whose previous film, Flatland, opened the Berlin Panorama, stars as Tamsyn. The Girl From St Agnes’ breakout stars Jane de Wet and Tristan de Beer are Roxy and Kyle; two-time Silwerskerm winner Carel Nel (Dwaalster, Hum, Slaaf) is Albert; Sihle Mnqwazana, who co-wrote and acted in The Fall, a New York Times critic’s choice play, plays Neo; Shalima Mkongi (Isithembiso, Nkululeko, Keeping Score) is Sihle; and Fiesta, Kanna and Fleur du Cape nominee David Viviers (Kanarie) plays Leon.
