"We all know an Adam": The haunting Showmax Original movie

Adam premieres on Showmax this Friday, 4 April, fresh from screening in competition at Joburg Film Festival in March. 

The topical drama follows a headstrong teenager who clashes with his idealistic teacher at a militaristic farm school. Rising star Marko Vorster (Francois in Donkerbos) plays Adam, with Dirk Stoltz (7de Laan) as his teacher and SAFTA nominee Inge Beckmann (Wyfie) as his mom. The stacked cast also includes 2024 SAFTA best actress winner Antoinette Louw (DAM), Dillon Windvogel (Spinners), and Paul Strydom (Reënboogrant, Spooksoeker). 

Adam is written by Winford Collings and co-directed by Collings and Liyema Speelman, inspired by their own experiences at high school. 

Part of Showmax’s first-time directors slate in partnership with the Joburg Film Festival, Adam is produced by Blended Films, winners of four Silwerskerm awards for last year’s feature film Hier.Na.

Watch the trailer for Adam

Roz Els spoke to Winford and Liyema to find out more: 

Winford, while you and Liyema are co-directors, you wrote the screenplay. Could you tell me more about where the roots of the story lie?

Winford: I went to a boarding school, so a lot of what I was drawing from were experiences I had there. I wrote the script at the end of matric. It was a way for me to make sense of everything that had happened. I felt compelled to write it back then because everything was still so visceral to me, and later on, in my adult years, when I worked through new drafts, I would add in new things as I understood more about actually being an adult, and what it means to be an adult who is responsible for children. I had the script for about 10 years before Showmax had this call for scripts. When Liyema came on as a co-director, he was able to relate to the story, because he had similar experiences to mine as part of an all-boys school. We could both relate to that feeling of bigoted masculinity and the feeling of being suffocated by a system.

Liyema, how did you get involved?

Liyema: Winford and I connected in 2019 and it wasn’t long before he told me about Adam for the first time. So, the seed was already planted back and it’s always stayed at the back of our minds as our friendship and our growth as filmmakers progressed. Winford finally came to me in 2023 with the script in hand, and he was like, “Let's just pitch”. We were in a year of just saying yes, and jumping and leaping, so we just did it, and we were successful. 

Despite the story being informed by your own experiences in boarding school, Adam has a very different setting. What motivated that decision?

Winford: The starting point for me was thinking about the violence that I'd witnessed, but not placing it in the setting of a boarding school, because we've seen that film, we've read that book, you know? We've already had Spud. I was also thinking about what is going to happen in 20, 30 years when these boys that went through these initiation practices have grown up, and then go on to have families, go on to have children, and they go on to be leaders. So the characters of Derek (Dirk Stoltz) and Adam (Marko Vorster) were my starting points – Adam as a kid coming into this system, and Derek as someone who was part of a system exactly like the one I experienced, and who then goes on to perpetuate that system. 

I knew that I wanted to set it on a farm, and I knew that I wanted it to speak to the anxiety around the land issue and what it means to have land. In the film, there's a line where Derek’s son, Marko (Paul Strydom), asks Adam, “What do you think about when you look at this fence?” And Adam says, “Danger”. And we see that play out in the Rian character. Rian (Brendan Murray) has gone through this experience at the farm as well, but instead of making him tougher, it has just reinforced the idea that there's always danger coming for you, and has made him a very paranoid, anxious person. Through Rian, we’re showing the effects of continuous messaging about how unsafe we are as South Africans, which was something that I personally never felt growing up. It felt counter to my lived experience. So I knew I wanted it to be set on a farm, and most farms in South Africa are owned by white Afrikaans men, so it made more sense for Adam to be a story about a conservative Afrikaans man clashing with a young suburban white kid. These two competing ideologies: a kid who just wants to draw and is interested in art, versus this guy from the farm. But also contrasting that with Marko, who isn't like his father at all. There's a lot in there about being South African that I didn't want to be too on the nose about; I wanted to speak to a general feeling. 

Tell me about the casting, because I don't think Derek's casting could have been more spot-on.

Winford: I've grown up watching Dirk Stoltz on 7de Laan. So as soon as his self-tape came in, I was like, “I don't even need to watch this. I've watched him for so many years; I know exactly what this guy is capable of.”

The lead actor, Marko Vorster, this is his first film role, and he was only 19 years old when we shot it. I'd seen him in Donkerbos. He has a pretty dark role in that, and back then he was 15. So I felt like if this kid can take on a role like that at 15, I thought at 19 he'll be able to do wonders with Adam. Adam is also a very dark role. It's a difficult role, and I think it would be difficult for any young actor to take on. But I knew that there was a certain bravery in Marko. He was one of our first choices, and he sent in an incredible self-tape.

Nailing those two roles was important but I'm so proud of the entire cast. Everyone just brought their A-game. 

Why should people watch Adam?

Winford: It's a very authentic South African story. It touches on something that each of us has dealt with. After the film screening at Joburg Film Festival, people from all walks of life - old, young, men, women, black, white, coloured - they were all saying to me that they could see themselves in Adam, or they could see themselves in one of the moms, or they would say, “My dad is like that.” Someone said to me, “We all know an Adam.” So, it's a story that every South African can find pieces of themselves in and can learn something about themselves.

Liyema: Especially in this time, where we as men are slowly rediscovering what it means to be a man in society. This film also speaks to that, and it asks the questions, “How do we create our own path? What is masculinity to us?” In conversations with friends, I find the same recurring theme, with everyone asking what it is to be a man now. Adam is one of those pieces where it looks into that and leaves you with the puzzle pieces to figure that out for yourself.