Monday, July 4, 2011

www.whitelionmovie.com - Janet van Eeden


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Janet van Eeden
Freelance Journalist, Producer,
     Theatre and Feature Film 
Scriptwriter and Lecturer

www.janetvaneeden.com/white 
janetvaneeden.blogspot.com
Janet van Eeden has been a writer most of her life. She wrote her first poem about a Tiger when she was eight. She has earned her living from freelance journalism, script writing and producing for the past thirteen years.
Janet hails from my 
South African home city, Pietermaritzburg. She is married with a lovely family and miraculously manages to juggle her family life with her hectic professional schedule. She inspires the wider SA community as well as people internationally with her numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, as well as with her productions, scriptwriting, lectures and courses, combined with her beauty, integrity and modesty.

WHITE LION

"According to the legend of the Shangaan, white lions messengers of the gods, but it has been years since one has been seen in their remote African valley. When a white lion is miraculously born into that valley, a young Shangaan named Gisani, finds himself destined to protect this rare and magnificent creature at all costs. This young lion, whom will be known as Letsatsi, is cast from his pride and forced to embark upon a perilous journey of survival. Close to starvation, Letsatsi befriends Nkulu, an older lion and together they learn how to survive in the harsh African wilderness Gisani, who is watching over Letsatsi, takes a job as a tracker with a local hunter, who has his sights set on leading the hunt for this rare and magnificent white lion. Gisani, guided by

fate, believes that he must find a way to prevent this tragedy from happening. When Nkulu is killed by a farmer, Letsatsi is forced once again to survive on his own. After many trials and tribulations he finally learns to hunt by himself and grows into a magnificent adult. But before he can take over a pride of his own, Letsatsi and Gisani must face their greatest challenge - the trophy hunter- for whom legends are worthless and rare skins priceless."





Janet co-wrote, White Lion, which was released 
in 2009. 

Janet has written for many print media including

 The Witness, The Sunday Independent, as well as a few British magazines,

 including Scriptwriter UK and the websites Litnet and Twelvepoint.com.

She has written eleven screenplays and six stage plays to date.

She reviews books regularly for The Witness and Litnet.

She has produced six plays (and directed two) and taken each one to the

 Grahamstown Arts Festival with funding from the National Arts Council.


 Her new play, In-Gene-Uity, premiered at the Grahamstown Festival in 

July 2009.

Janet was a supervising producer on two M-Net EDiT Films, “Smile” (2006) 


and


 “Commando” (2007), written by her film writing students, 


Johann Hyman


 and Stephen de Villiers, while lecturing at UKZN.




A full-length feature film she co-wrote
                 
White Lion   

                                                                           
premiered at the 
                                                                                                                Durban International Film Festival 


 and was released internationally

in February 2010.


Janet has her Masters in English (cum laude)

 and lectured part-time in Scriptwriting at the University of KZN

 for two years. 


Janet  gives Scriptwriting workshops around the 

country and has given workshops at AFDA

 Johannesburg, for the Wildlife Film Academy at the

Kruger National Park and at 

Entabeni Game Reserve.

She has given workshops at Wild Talk International Film Festival 

at The ICC.

 in Durban in 2009 and at Spier Wine Estate in Cape Town in 2011.

She received a National Arts Council Grant in 2008 to write 


the novel, The Width of a Thread.

Her stage play A Matter of Time was unanimously declared the winning entry 


by all three judges of the Olive Schreiner Award 2008.


She is currently producing her own film,


 A Shot at the Big Time



in co-production with Moviworld, the producers 


of the 




Oscar-winning film, Tsotsi.




Janet offers an 
                                                                                    online Scriptwriting Course 



You can 


Contact Janet on 


htpp://www.janetvaneeden.../OnlineScriptwriting.htm



                                                                    attracting students from as 


far afield as the DRC and


Europe.




  
Janet is currently doing her PHD in Media on Scripting


 the South African Film.

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4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for this kind post Eve! You're very kind. All good things to you. X

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  2. Reading all of this makes me very proud to say that I was given the privilege to attend some of your learning sessions at the Kruger. I agree... You are amazing!

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  3. Ah thank you so much Gert! And you were part of my first group of students ever at WFA which were so very special to me. Thank you! All good things to you. XXX

    ReplyDelete