Black Butterflies is a 2011 drama film written by Greg Latter and directed by Paula van der Oest.
"Poetry, politics, madness, and desire collide in the true story of the woman hailed as South Africa’s Sylvia Plath. In 1960s Cape Town, as Apartheid steals the expressive rights of blacks and whites alike, young Ingrid Jonker (Carice van Houten, Black Book) finds her freedom scrawling verse while frittering through a series of stormy affairs. Amid escalating quarrels with her lovers and her government-censor father (Rutger Hauer), the poet witnesses an unconscionable event that will alter her life’s course."
Quoting thee description from the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival site.
Black Butterflies is a Dutch film about the life of South-African poet Ingrid Jonker. The film was directed by Paula van der Oest and premiered in the Netherlands on February 6th before being released on March 31, 2011. Although Jonker spoke and wrote in Afrikaans and the film is a Dutch production, the film is spoken in English.
The film is a depiction of the life of Ingrid Jonker (1933–65) (played by Van Houten), an Afrikaner. Her mother has died in a mental hospital, she lives with her sister at her grandmother's. After the passing of her grandmother Ingrid and her sister come to live with their father Abraham (played by Hauer), who treats them as outsiders. Ingrid marries, and gives birth to a daughter, but the marriage does not last. It is the era of apartheid, of which her father is a strong proponent, being South Africa's Minister of Censorship. Ingrid is opposed to the apartheid regime, and has a strained relationship with her father. He opposes her relationship with author Jack Cope (played by Cunningham) and her anti-apartheid poetry, which is inciteful in his eyes. He would like to ban one of her works but doesn't, fearing a widespread riot. As Ingrid keeps opposing the
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