Gaia debuts on Showmax on Halloween, 31 October 2022. Set in the Tsitsikamma National Park, Gaia won Best Film, Director, Editor, Sound Design and Hair and Make Up at Silwerskerm, as well as Best International Film at Trieste Science + Fiction Festival, among other accolades.
Gaia features an injured forest ranger on a routine mission (SAFTA nominee Monique Rockman from Nommer 37) who is saved by two off-the-grid survivalists (Silwerskerm winner Carel Nel from 4 Mure and SAFTA nominee Alex van Dyk from Die Stropers). But what starts out as a welcome rescue grows more suspicious as the son and his renegade father reveal a cultish devotion to the forest. When their cabin is attacked by a strange being, it’s clear there is a far greater threat in this unrelenting wilderness.
Ecological horror
Gaia was released in cinemas, on Hulu and via video on demand in North America last year by Decal, a joint venture between Neon and Bleecker Street. The ecological horror has a 85% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Decider hailing it as “a standout at South By Southwest” and describing the film as a “psychedelic-mushroom Cronenberg-via-del-Toro eco-body-horror creepy-creature freakout … visually potent … strange, beautiful and disgusting.”
A week into filming Gaia, production was halted due to the outbreak of Covid. They only resumed shooting three months later.
Fiction into reality
“Suddenly what was fiction became a strange form of reality and our pre-apocalyptic film started to resonate more with cast and crew,” says Bouwer. “We experience a searing grief and horror when the collapse flickers into view… I don’t think the performances in Gaia would’ve had the same emotional undercurrent if it wasn’t for the pandemic and its interruption into our work.”
RogerEbert.com calls Gaia “a trip and a half…” adding, “Gaia has a lot to say about humanity’s destruction of the environment, about the ‘tipping point’ we have collectively reached… but the film says it with creativity, mad flights of imagination, and even humour… It’s a thought-provoking and disturbing experience…”
What: Gaia on Showmax
WS
