THE FILM
ALLEEN
A contained historical drama set in South Africa during the Second Boer War.
South Africa, 1901.
THE STORY
FAR FROM THE BATTLEFIELD
In 1901 South Africa, the Second Boer War has pulled Johan away from his farm and his wife, Willemien. Left to maintain their isolated homestead in his absence, she continues with the routines of daily life while the conflict carries on somewhere beyond the horizon.
As the war draws closer, those routines begin to change. News becomes scarce, familiar faces disappear, and Willemien is increasingly left to rely on herself. What begins as a long and uncertain wait for her husband's return gradually becomes something more dangerous as the consequences of the war reach her home.
With nowhere else to go and little certainty of what lies beyond the surrounding veld, Willemien remains at the farm, determined to protect the home she and Johan built, with an aim to survive long enough to see him return.
THE APPROACH
A SMALL STORY, IN A LARGER WORLD
Alleen keeps its focus deliberately small. Rather than following armies, generals, or the major battles of the Second Boer War, the film remains largely with one woman and one isolated farm.
Through Willemien’s experience, the wider conflict is felt through her husband’s absence, the limited news that reaches the farm, and the gradual disruption of her everyday life. The war exists beyond the boundaries of the homestead, but its consequences become increasingly difficult to keep at a distance.
By limiting the story to this perspective, the war remains present without always being seen. The landscape, the homestead and the routines of daily life become the setting through which a much larger period of South African history is experienced. As those routines are disrupted and Willemien’s isolation grows, the world of the farm begins to reflect the uncertainty of the country surrounding it.
SOUTH AFRICA, 1901
THE SECOND BOER WAR
By 1901, the Second Boer War had changed considerably from the conflict that began two years earlier. Many of the large conventional battles were over, but the war continued across the South African countryside as Boer commandos relied increasingly on mobility and guerrilla tactics. British forces responded with a campaign aimed at denying them food, shelter and support, bringing farms and rural communities directly into the conflict.
Homesteads were burned, crops and supplies destroyed, livestock removed or killed, and civilians displaced from the land. Thousands of Boer women and children were eventually confined in British concentration camps, while similar camps were established for Black South Africans displaced by the war. For those who remained in the countryside, isolation offered little protection. A farm could provide a family with its home and livelihood while also making it vulnerable to the forces moving through the region.
This is the landscape in which Alleen takes place. The open veld and distant mountains may appear quiet, but by this stage of the war, the countryside itself had become part of the battlefield. What happens beyond the horizon can eventually arrive at the front door.
