The Hole In The Wall (Gat In Die Muur)

Biography – Johan Vorster (Director & Producer)

Johan started his career in the music industry as part of the band Eden, the most successful group in Afrikaans music history. Johan wrote most of the band’s super hits. His songs ‘Is jy bang’, ’54 5de straat’ and ‘Lyf teen lyf’ helped propel the band to all 3 of its Platinum albums and 2 SAMA (South African Music Awards) awards for best Afrikaans pop albums.

In 2005 Johan and Sean Else, fellow band member of Eden, started Mozi Records. Bok van Blerk was the first artist to be signed to the record label. Johan wrote and produced most of the album ‘De la Rey’ which became the biggest selling original Afrikaans record of all time, topping sales of over 200 000 units. Johan was the lead writer of the song ‘De la Rey’, and at this point it became apparent that Johan would excel tremendously in the art of songwriting. In that same year, the song ‘De la Rey’ also reached the front page of the New York Times.

In the following year Mozi Records signed their first female artist, Lianie May. Johan wrote and produced her album, also writing the song ‘Jy soen my nie meer nie’, which put Lianie May on the map in the local music scene. The album became the biggest selling Afrikaans female debut album topping sales of over 120 000 units. A year after its release the album won the SAMA (South African Music Award) for the top selling album in the country, Steve Hofmeyr being the only other Afrikaans artist who had achieved this before. In 2008 Johan went on to win the Huisgenoot Tempo award for songwriter of the year for the song ‘Jy soen my nie meer nie’.

Johan teamed up with Coleske Artists and together they started a joint venture that would prove to have no equal in the Afrikaans music industry. Johan was the lead writer of the song ‘Ons vir Jou Suid-Afrika’ for the 2007 Rugby World Cup. This exact song coach Jake White indicated in his book was played to the player’s in the bus before the big games. That year the Springbok’s brought the Web Ellis trophy to South Africa after their victory over England. The album won the Huisgenoot Tempo award for best Afrikaans Compilation album and also became the best selling compilation album of the year.

Johan has written over 45 number one singles, and his songs and album sales surpassed the 1 million mark in 2009. This is unheard of for one writer to achieve this in such a short amount of time. Johan wrote and co-produced the highly acclaimed ‘Afrikaans is Groot’ compilation albums, that soon became the biggest selling albums of its kind every year in the Afrikaans music industry, topping sales of over 300 000 albums.

Johan wrote the score for the locally produced musicals, ‘Ons vir Jou’, ‘Jock of the bushveld’ and ‘Shaka’, that got staged in the Nelson Mandela Theatre and the State Theatre in Pretoria in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

As a director of Mozi Records Johan established Johan Vorster Songs in 2009, a publishing company holding all the rights to his songs. But it was only in the second half of 2010 that Johan resigned from Mozi Records, continuing on his own with his record company and publishing house, Johan Vorster Songs. In 2010 he signed his first artist, Karlien van Jaarsveld. Karlien became the first artist to sell gold status in the Afrikaans music industry in 2011 with her album ‘Jakkals trou met wolf se vrou’. She also won the Huisgenoot Tempo award for best newcomer in 2011. He followed this trend with the singer Dewald Wasserfall in 2014, and with Leah in 2016, all rising stars he developed that shot to fame in South Africa.

Johan wrote most of the songs for the Afrikaans film ‘Platteland’ that released in December 2011, featuring, Lianie May, Bok Van Blerk and Karlien Van Jaarsveld. He also wrote the title track and original music for the soundtrack for the feature film “Modder en Bloed."

Johan produced the Afrikaans blockbuster musical film “As Jy Sing” and the drama, “Gat in Die Muur” which he also co-wrote and co-directed.

In 2016, Johan restructured his company, to form Inhoud Huis, (meaning House of Content) with a music division, and a media division to specialise in the creation of intellectual property for multiple platforms. He is already working on his next feature film, and a big scale television series.

Johan is married to Rencha Vorster, co-writer and member of Johan Vorster Songs. They live in Pretoria and have 2 boys, Joshua and Raphael.

Biography – André Odendaal (Director)

André Odendaal is a seasoned actor and director, and is involved in developing and directing film and theatre projects in South Africa.

André started his career at the PACT Drama Company in 1986 where he worked until 1990 as a permanent actor in the company, acting in everything from Sheakespeare plays to Pantomimes. During this time, he performed in over 45 stage productions, and continued to perform on stage for many years after that. To date, he has acted in over 70 theatre products.

André has appeared in various television productions over the last 20 years, the most prominent being “Going Up”, “Human Cargo” for CBC, and “Rhodes” which screened on BBC, and “Hartland” and “Getroud met Rugby” which screened on KykNet.

Since 1999, André has focused on directing. His directing career started with the youth sitcom “SOS” for ETV, which won 8 Avanti Awards, and continued with other television productions such as “Madame and Eve”, “Mazinyo Dot Q”, “Fishy Fashans”, and more recently ”Backstage”, “Rhythm City” and “Binnelanders”. He directed the plays “Vergenoeg” based on the Marita Van Der Vyfer Bestseller with Sandra Prinsloo in the lead, in 2010 and “Somewhere on the Border” in 2011, which showed both in Johannesburg and Cape Town. This led to him being invited to various festivals around the world such as “Isra Drama” in Israel, and the “Mladinsko Festival” in Slovenia. In 2013, André took part in a global theatre workshop at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, USA, as part of a global team, developing a world theatre project.

André has directed several feature films, including “Hey Boy” in 2002, “Skilpoppe” in 2004, “Lien se Lankstaan Skoene” in 2013 and “As Jy Sing”, the film Afrikaans musical blockbuster produced by legendary songwriter Johan Vorster.

He has won several awards including Two Vita Awards: “Most Promising Actor” in 1988 and “Best Supporting Actor” in 1989. He won the “Best TV Director” Avanti Award in 2003 for his work on “Comedy SOS” that screened on ETV. In 2004, he won the “Top Director’s Choice” at the Hollywood Digital Film Festival. In 2011, he won the Fiesta “Best Actor” Award for his role in “Magspel”.