Oliver Hermanus

Hermanus's first film, Shirley Adams, released in 2009, relates the story of a single mother raising her paraplegic son, who was injured during a gang fight.[4] Hermanus has stated that he got the idea for the film from his sister, an occupational therapist, who told him the story of a teenage boy paralysed in a shooting incident.[5]

Shirley Adams premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in 2009 where the film received awards for Best South African Film, Best First Film, and Best Actress for Denise Newman.[4] The film was shown in competition at the Locarno Film Festival[6] and was also shown at the Toronto International Film Festival.[4] The film also won awards for Best Film and Best Director at the 2009 South African Film and Television Awards.[7]

Beauty (known as Skoonheid in Afrikaans) was the fifth South African movie to be selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival and the first in Afrikaans.[3] The film won the 2011 Queer Palm Award for best picture,[2] and Hermanus won the 2012 South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) for Best Director.[8] Lead actor Deon Lotz won the 2012 SAFTA for Best Actor in a Feature Film for his role in Beauty,[8] as well as Best Actor at the Zurich Film Festival.[9] Beauty was also part of the Official Selection 2011 for the Prize Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.[10]

Beauty relates the story of François, a married, closeted, middle-aged Afrikaner, who becomes obsessed with a handsome young lawyer, Christian (played by Charlie Keegan), the son of one of his friends.[11] Beauty was critically praised for being an "unvarnished study of the turbulence of the middle-aged male psyche, but it also addresses the current Afrikaner condition".[11] Another critic noted that the film's original title, Skoonheid, ". . . means 'beauty' in Afrikaans but literally translates as 'cleanliness' . . . is a story about the ugly truth of confronting parts of yourself that you hate and try to suppress".[12]

Some reviewers and critics noted that the film's subject matter and visuals could be "off-putting"[11] and "graphic".[13] Hermanus stated that he was grateful that the film stirred debate.[13] "The debates on the gay issues are amazing, but I'm still yearning for the debate to start on other issues like repression and racial tensions in the movie".[13]

Hermanus was guest of honour at "Side by Side," an international festival of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender film held in Moscow in April 2011.[14] The filmmaker presented Beauty at the festival.[14]

In 2015, Hermanus wrote and directed his third film, The Endless River.[15] This film became the first South African film to compete for the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.[15] Lead actress Crystal Donna Roberts also competed for the Best Actress award at the festival.[15]

The film is set in the small town of Riviersonderend in the Overberg region of South Africa and relates the story of a French expatriate and a small-town waitress who form a bond after the brutal murder of his family on a farm.[16] In describing Endless River, Hermanus explained, "I wanted to combine in my film a place I'm familiar with the story of violence happening in South Africa".[6]

Hermanus's fourth film, Moffie, had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on 4 September 2019.[17] The film is based on an autobiographical novel by South African writer André Carl van der Merwe, relating the author's experiences serving in the South African military during the Apartheid-era war in Angola.[17] The lead character, Nicholas van der Swart (played by Kai Luke Brummer), and fellow recruit Stassen (Ryan de Villiers), share a mutual attraction but must make their sexuality invisible to avoid being viciously humiliated and brutalised.[18] '

Moffie was one of three Southern African films submitted for consideration in the 2021 Golden Globe Awards Best Foreign Language Film category.[19]

In October 2020, it was announced that Hermanus will direct the film, Living, set to star Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood.[20] The film's screenplay was written by Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro and is an adaptation of the 1952 Japanese film Ikiru.[20]