ANITA VAN HEMERT

Winner of first pan-African award for best Film Production Design: Otelo Burning

ABOUT award winning Anita van Hemert

Anita started in the industry in 1987 straight after attending a course at the Cape Town Film and Video School. C-Films was the only television production company in Cape Town at the time and she grabbed the opportunity to get to work immediately as a PROPS and SET DRESSING ASSISTANT on ‘The Stick Fighter’ for TV2 (SABC). Soon after she managed the Art Department on set for the acclaimed period Boer-War drama series ‘Arende’.
After moving up to Johannesburg, Anita started to work for the then, Nu-World International on various Feature Films as a STAND BY PROPS PERSON. This position she held and perfected during 5 years on various American feature films and also numerous is SABC television dramas.
In 1999 she joined the ‘Isidingo’ Art Department and soon ART DIRECTED the department for 3 years. Here she learned SET DESIGNING, studio set building and the multi-cam process. From 2002 she left to pursue the freelance industry and worked on Theatre productions as a STAGE MANAGER for Art Festivals, worked on many more commercials and SET DECORATED and ART DIRECTED TV Dramas. One of them, ‘Bay of Plenty’ for SABC2, won her the Best Art direction in a Drama award at the 2009 SAFTAS.
She also art directed more many Studio productions like ‘City Ses’la’ and ‘Backstage’
In 2010 Anita designed 2 Films ‘Protect the Nation’ and ‘Otelo Burning’. She received 3 nominations and1 win for her design on Otelo Burning, taking the award for Best Production Design on a feature for the inaugural Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCA) held in Lagos in 2013.
In 2011 Anita tested her skills as PRODUCER for the Youth Reality show: ‘Restyle My Style’, a children’s make-over show. On this series, she designed all the makeovers and managed the production through to edit. She repeated this skill in 2013, with a second season, and added her DIRECTING debut to her list of skills.
Anita also PRODUCED the comedy series, ‘On the Couch’, for SABC3
As the appointed CHAIR for the Production Design discipline at AFDA, she has been involved with assessing student projects on their aesthetic interpretation and has conducted several classes for under and post-Graduate students.
In 2015, she did the SET DESIGN for the highly acclaimed Pedi coming-of-age soap, ‘Skeem Saam’ for SABC1
After successfully having designed and built all the sets for the series, she joined ‘Uzalo’, the very popular Zulu Soap for SABC 1.
Here she transformed the Art Department, re- modelled existing sets, and DESIGNED, BUILD and Decorated all the sets required for Seasons 3 and 4.
More recently, she joined ‘Imbewu’ for eTV on seasons 3 and 4, where she introduced swing set build to increase the story world.