Set during the days of apartheid in Cape Town’s District Six, comes a fulfilling story of a postman who will stop at nothing to mail to friends and neighbours who have disappeared without a trace, due to the forced removals by the government.
“Address Unknown”, is a 24 minute Afrikaans story starring Stefan Erasmus as postman Joey with Bianca Flanders as his co-star.
His journey begins after receiving a letter for his childhood friend, Ebie, played by Irshaad Ally. Joey sets off to look for him, despite the prevailing danger of the 1976 protests.
“Address Unknown” marks the first venture into fiction by director Nadine Cloete, who won the 2016 Audience Award at Encounters for “Action Kommandant”, a documentary about the late freedom fighter Ashley Kriel, and had her first short documentary, “Miseducation”, featured on The New York Times.
“It’s a friendship film but it also speaks to resistance. History and identity have always been themes in my work.
“There are so many things that are still unresolved, but which we don’t speak about. With my work, I want to stimulate conversation and healing,” said Cloete.
The script was written by Anton Fisher, a former journalist who Cloete met during “Action Kommandant” as one of Kriel’s Struggle comrades.
According to Zain Young, a former postman and resident of District Six who was interviewed in the development of the script, many residents left District Six without providing a forwarding address.
This resulted in the correspondence addressed to them being marked “Address Unknown” and destroyed by the General Post Office of the time.
Produced by The Divergence Film Foundation, in association with the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), “Address Unknown” will screen at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia in the US, among other festivals.
“Address Unknown“ is streaming on Showmax.