Janet van Eeden
I’ve written eighteen feature screenplays as well as numerous short films, written and produced six stage plays (and directed two) and taken each one to the Grahamstown Arts Festival, with funding from the National Arts Council.
A full-length feature film I wrote, White Lion, premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in July 2009 and was released internationally in February 2010.
Since 2011, I have offered an online Scriptwriting Course which has attracted students from across the world and continues to do so.
I won the 2011 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award as a Columnist for The Sunday Independent.
I wrote and produced the short of A Shot at the Big Time. Shot, the Short was filmed in July 2012, directed by Stephen de Villiers, and premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in July 2013. In November 2013 Shot, the short was nominated for an eThekwini Award. It won for Best Cinematography (Luke Pallett, DOP). In May, 2014, Shot, the short was selected for the Cannes Short Film Corner, Metrage.
In 2015, the Writers’ Guild of South Africa nominated three of my stage plays for the Award of Outstanding Achievement in Produced Stage Plays. I was given the Muse Award for A Matter of Time. My stage play, The Space Between, was nominated for a Muse Award in the same category, in March 2017.
I am currently producing A Shot at the Big Time, the feature. I raised R100 000 on Indiegogo.com in January 2016. We received funding from the KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission in June 2017 and we will start production of the film in 2018.
I have my Masters in English (cum laude), and graduated with Doctorate of Philosophy on 7th September, 2017, in English Studies. My thesis was entitled "Beyond the Biopic: An Exploration into the Nature of Biography through the Medium of film". The degree was awarded by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, School of Humanities, Pietermaritzburg.
I am the Head of Post Graduate Studies at AFDA Durban Film & Performance School.
Author of The Book of War, James Whyle, in conversation with Janet van Eeden
2012-08-30 "Whyle’s marriage of history with fine craftsmanship has shot him straight to the forefront of our writing community. His style is inimitable, his ways with language poetic, and he can hold his own against the few literary giants who have emerged from this continent."
Janet van Eeden discusses A Shot at the Big Time
2012-08-20 "This film is based on the life of my brother but it’s had to move into the realms of fiction, for obvious reasons. I don’t know the exact details of who he met in the army and how they reduced him to the point of stealing a rifle and going AWOL during his basic training."
Author of Dancing in the Shadows of Love, Judy Croome, in conversation with Janet van Eeden
2012-06-07 “Dancing in the Shadows of Love is an unusual novel in that it takes the form of a moral allegory of sorts, yet seems to be a fantasy novel on one level. However, it’s rooted in a world we can identify with as reality. ”
Author of Freedom Never Rests, James Kilgore, in conversation with Janet van Eeden
2012-05-17 “Freedom Never Rests portrays a complex picture of a country going through a transition and James Kilgore brings his vast experience of countries moving through change, violent or otherwise, to this novel.”
Stones for My Father: Second Boer War remembered
2012-04-04 The scenes in the concentration camp are brutal and realistic. The smells of putrefaction and starvation seep through the page and Trilby Kent shows that she has done her research well.
Yewande Omotoso, author of Bom Boy, in conversation with Janet van Eeden
2012-03-12 "I loved Omotoso’s flirtation with magic realism in some parts of the story and I look forward to more of this from her in the future. Her skill lies in the subtlety of her character creations. Omotoso is definitely an author to watch."
Somewhere on the Border - an inter-review
2012-02-22 Anthony Akerman, playwright, in conversation with Janet van Eeden, about the republication of his play Somewhere on the Border
AE Ballakisten in conversation with Janet van Eeden
2012-02-15 Janet van Eeden talks to AE Ballakisten about his new collection of poetry, Talking to a Tree, Poems of a Fragile World
Gallows Hill not a match for Daddy's Girl
2012-01-26 Gallows Hill is the fourth novel in the Clare Hart series, which has made Margie Orford one of this country’s most successful crime novelists.
McIntosh Polela in conversation with Janet van Eeden about his memoir My Father, My Monster
2012-01-18 Janet van Eeden reads My Father, My Monster and speaks to author McIntosh Polela about the past, the present and his future literary projects
Best reads of the year 2011
2012-01-18 Janet van Eeden picks the ten most memorable books that made an appearance on her bedside table last year
Joanne Hichens, author of Divine Justice, in conversation with Janet van Eeden
2011-12-08 In Divine Justice, Hichens leaps solo into a story of bizarre characters, tensely twisted plots, chilling hatred and a denouement to die for.
A Shot at the Big Time
2011-12-07 Award-winning film-maker and journalist Janet van Eeden has launched a crowd-sourcing campaign for her film A Shot at the Big Time, inspired by the story of her brother, Jimmy, who took his own life rather than fight in the apartheid Border War, a war ...
Nashen Moodley joins the Sydney Film Festival
2011-12-01 Nashen Moodley joins Sydney Film Festival at a time of great strength and growth.