Variations on a Theme – Award-winning Film Honouring Matriarch in Cinemas over Mother’s Day Weekend

A quiet, deeply personal story rooted in memory and resilience is set to reach local audiences this May, as Variations on a Theme opens in cinemas for a limited run over the Mother’s Day weekend.

From Friday 8 May, the award-winning film by 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year, Jason Jacobs and co-director Devon Delmar, brings an intimate Northern Cape narrative to the big screen, balancing historical reflection with contemporary urgency.

Set in the mountains of Kharkams, the 65-minute the Afrikaans film, Variasies op ‘n Tema (with English subtitles) centres on Ouma Hettie, a 79-year-old goat herder navigating both the weight of history and the uncertainty of the present. When she is drawn into a scam promising long-overdue reparations linked to her father’s World War II service, her story unfolds as one of waiting, endurance and the fragile dignity of independence in later life.

A story told differently

I already knew that this is a narrated film, but I wasn’t really sure of what exactly to expect when watching Variations on a Theme. Was it going to feel like a documentary, or have sparse dialogue, or could it end up being tedious to watch?
It took me a little bit to figure out its unconventional cinematic style, and then it beautifully all made sense.

An intricately woven tapestry of sights, sounds, and conversations, the film carefully pulls back the curtain on the lives of a family and a community, relying on us, the viewers, being able to pick up variations, important changes in details, that help us understand the characters. Scenes are repeated with changes in details or focal points, but without those details trying to overwhelm you with sensory overload. Some scenes even had a subtle spooky vibe, but not in a scary way… more in a manner that acknowledges the presence of ancestors.

The narration is poetic in a sense that it doesn’t mundanely tell you facts about the characters, but with sensory imagery describes their life experiences, past and present. The film scenes at times simply set the background for the narration, but not in a manner that makes it look like they are trying to describe a postcard from Putsonderwater.

A story shaped by memory

While fictional in structure, the film draws directly from lived experience. Jacobs narrates a story inspired by his own great-grandfather, who returned from World War II with little more than a bicycle and a pair of boots after years of service. That legacy, echoed across generations, becomes central to the film’s emotional core.

Delmar describes the project as part of a broader pattern, where communities continue to wait for recognition and justice decades after 1945. This sense of historical repetition is embedded not only in the narrative, but also in the film’s distinctive visual approach, structured around recurring “variations” that gradually reveal deeper meaning through subtle shifts in everyday life.

“My great-grandfather fought for the Allies in World War II,” says Jacobs, who narrates the film. “He was 19 when he signed up. Like many others, he must have returned with his head full of night-time terrors: of artillery fire and screams heard in dark and foreign lands, of bombs, falling planes and burning cities. His payment after four years of service? At the harbour in Cape Town, before heading home to his goats, he received a pair of boots and a bicycle.”

“While our film is fictional, it’s based on lived experiences,” says Delmar. “This includes the scam. In many ways, this is yet another variation on a theme: that this community is still waiting, hoping and persevering, just as they’ve been since 1945.”

Casting grounded in authenticity

It’s that casting that grounds the film’s authenticity. Ouma Hettie is portrayed by Jacobs’ own grandmother, Hettie Farmer, who makes her film debut at 80. Surrounded by a cast drawn entirely from the local community, the film carries an unfiltered sense of place, where performance and lived reality merge seamlessly on screen.

It is as if Variations on a Theme is an alternative form of a reality TV show. In scenes where there is more dialogue, one could wonder if the actors, many of whom played themselves, were allowed to ad-lib around the script. It left me with the impression that they were honestly living out the scenes, instead of ‘performing their roles’.

Kudos to the actors who played completely fictional characters alongside those who portrayed themselves. Regan Nontas, who, as the fictional Trompie, digs a hole in his bedroom to find lost diamonds. It may seem to have nothing to do with the main story arc, but you will realise that it makes sense how the film regularly pivots back to him and his digging.

Gladwin van Niekerk, one of the breakout stars of Carissa, the critically acclaimed 2024 film written & directed by Jason Jacobs & Devon Delmar, appears in Variations on a Theme as Gladwin, the local hair stylist. Van Niekerk delivers a solid performance as another ‘victim of the scam’ without their role overshadowing the less experienced cast members who play themselves.

From Kharkams to global acclaim

Despite its intimate scale, Variations on a Theme has travelled widely, earning international recognition along the way. The film won the top prize at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, placing Jacobs and Delmar in the company of filmmakers such as two-time Oscar winner Christopher Nolan, who won the same honour early in his career.

Its festival run has included screenings at the Joburg Film Festival, where it won Best African Film, as well as appearances in Hong Kong and New York through the New Directors/New Films programme. Critics have responded with equal warmth, praising the film’s observational style, literary quality and its attentiveness to language and local custom.

Back home in Kharkams, the film’s impact has extended beyond the screen. A three-night red carpet screening in Kharkams earlier this year allowed the community at the heart of the story to celebrate its success first-hand, reinforcing the film’s commitment to local collaboration and cultural representation.

A Mother’s Day release with meaning

Releasing the film over Mother’s Day weekend adds a layer of symbolic resonance. Ouma Hettie stands as more than a character, representing a generation of South African matriarchs whose histories remain largely unacknowledged, yet continue to shape the present.

The film’s focus on family, memory and independence is sharpened by the tension surrounding her 80th birthday, as relatives urge her to leave behind the life she has built in the mountains. It is in this quiet conflict that the film finds its emotional weight, exploring what it means to hold on to identity in the face of change.

Why Variations on a Theme is culturally and socially important

I’ve always had a fondness for films that depict rural life in an authentic manner, and particularly films that depict rural Afrikaans-speaking people who are designated to be part of the Coloured population group, and does not shy away from their authentic dialects or their cultural nuances.
In that respect, Variations on a Theme, does not disappoint, but it also does not overemphasise the Namaqualand dialect in a way that makes it a “quirk” or uses it as “comic relief”. It is simply just being authentic.

It is also important that South Africans and the rest of the world see and understand the impact of the unequal treatment by colonial-era South Africa of Black & Coloured soldiers of the
Native Military Corps and the Cape Corps who volunteered to fight for their country and the British empire.

Upon returning from World War II, Black and Coloured soldiers were given small cash allowances, suits, or bicycles, while white soldiers received housing and land, along with fair financial compensation.
The disparity in post-war compensation based on race continues to manifest as generational shackles in the socio-economic conditions of the descendants of many of those Black and Coloured World War II soldiers, while the land and financial compensation given to returning white soldiers gave many of them the basis to build generational wealth.

Not a Political Statement but Insightful Social Commentary

Don’t get it twisted; Variations on a Theme is not told as a political statement or as a narrative bemoaning racism and colonialism. It is a story of ordinary folk living lives shaped by their culture, their personal histories, their rural geographic location, and yes, even the impact of colonialism and Apartheid, but overall, it’s about them just trying to make a better life for themselves.

About the Reparations Scam, all I will say is that it has become a norm that fraudsters will always find a collective weakness in society that they can exploit, and it can happen anywhere in the world. In this case, a rural community that still has a collective memory of the unfair treatment of their elders upon their return from World War II made for an easy target, and in a sense the scam added a dark comedy foundation layer to a touching and sensitively told story.

WATCH: Variations on a Theme – 2026 – Official Trailer

An unconventional story worth experiencing

Initially, I was wee bit concerned that I might not enjoy watching a film that I understood to be ‘heavy-laden’ with narration. I ended up not only enjoying watching Variasies op ’n Tema, but more so, I was beautifully experiencing aspects of life with the people Kharkam.

If you’d like to experience a film that breaks from almost every convention of what we generally think the flow of a feature film should be like, then Variations on a Theme is right up your alley.
If you appreciate watching a movie that doesn’t rely on canned adrenalin rushes, but gently draws you in, allowing you to feel part of the process of peeling off new layers, then this film is an unconventional story worth experiencing.

Screenings of Variety on a Theme open for a limited run from Friday 8 May 2026 in select cinemas including The Labia and Ster-Kinekor V&A Nouveau in Cape Town, as well as at The Bioscope and Ster-Kinekor Rosebank Nouveau in Johannesburg.