It's easy to come to Orania with a whole heap of preconceptions. A documentary about the eponymous town founded in 1991 only for Afrikaners - white South Africans descended from the original Dutch settlers - it's unsurprising that the place has garnered such a negative image within the post-Apartheid nation. It would be easy to play on the town's obvious eccentricities and portray it as a kind of South African Royston Vasey, but rather than ridicule his subjects Tobias Lindner's frankly stunning documentary sets out to get to know them better. Taking a Verite approach Lindner's camera quietly observes a broad selection of the town's inhabitants as they go about their business, and so intimate is our access to this unusual community that we almost feel a part of it by the end.

The film ultimately reveals not so much a community of bigots (even the most traditional and right wing of inhabitants are shown to have a human side), but a people merely trying to keep their culture alive. It's refreshing to see a documentary that doesn't have an axe to grind, but even more so it's good to leave the cinema feeling as though your prejudices have been challenged in a very unexpected way. Surely that is the best result a documentary can hope for?

Dean Bowman

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