Details

Release year: 1989

Storyline

Six people meet in the Kalahari desert: a female NYC lawyer flying with a local zoologist/pilot in a mini-plane, a Cuban and an African soldier taking each other POW, a Boer elephant poacher, and a Bushman looking for his two children.

Top credits

Directors

Jamie Uys

Writers

Jamie Uys

Cast

N!xau — Xixo
Lena Farugia — Dr. Ann Taylor
Hans Strydom — Dr. Stephen Marshall
Eiros — Xiri

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Did you know

• The aircraft used in the movie was a modified Lazair Ultralight. It did not actually fly, as it had no engine and was made of fibreglass. The airplane was fitted with a small electric motor to turn the propellor, when filming on the ground. With the help of a crane, the mock airplane was lifted and slowly swung around with the actors inside, for its scenes in the film, and the footage then sped up in post-production. An identical, but small scale radio operated model airplane was used for long shots. The full scale version would later be displayed suspended from the ceiling of Stringfellows, an aviation-themed restaurant in Bloemfontein, South Africa, part-owned by producer Boet Troskie. The airplane was later seen on display in Mimosa Mall, site of Troskie's Mimosa Films offices. Meanwhile, the radio controlled model plane would be seen hanging on display in a hobbyshop in Cresta, a suburb of Randburg, near the border of Johannesburg.

• Producer Boet Troskie considered this film and The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) as the only true films in the series, while labeling all subsequent knock-offs without his and Jamie Uys's involvement "ungodly fakes".

• The scene with Xiri being run over by the truck was done using blue screen work by the child actor. A studio shot of Eiros falling to the ground was chroma keyed over a ground level shot of the truck passing over the camera lens.