Come July, Hansie will be in Indian theatres

How do you start over once you’ve betrayed a nation’s trust? Wonder if that is a question? It’s not. It was the dilemma of a fallen hero. It is the overriding theme of — Hansie — a film based on former South Africa captain Hansie Cronje.

Again, if you wonder if Hansie is all about the intrigues of match fixing and bookies, then it is not. It is about Cronje’s journey in life - from golden boy of South Africa to its national disgrace. Hansie, released recently in South Africa, has earned critical acclaim but has not exactly set the cash register ringing. As a Johannesburg-based film buff and a cricketer says, the story of a fallen hero has not caught the imagination of the South Africans. “Cronje had left many angry with his revelations. People were let down by him.”

Frans, brother of Cronje and producer of Hansie, says it was an honest and accurate attempt to “portray and explore the very human drama of a man who, after losing everything he has worked for, begins the painstaking journey back to life.” He recalls: “My brother had everything he wanted, yet he made a mistake.”

Bringing alive Cronje was not easy for the makers but Frans says they tried to make it the most accurate portrayal. “It was not easy  for me to make a movie on my brother. But we wanted to make it accurate. We got the inputs of Peter Pollock, Jonty Rhodes, Ali Bacher, Bertha (Hansie’s wife). It was difficult but we were fortunate that everyone was involved and came on board.”

He says Cronje’s widow Bertha approved of it. “She said it looks strange that you see other people in your own story. She thought it was accurate as also did Dr Ali Bacher, who felt it was an honest presentation of Hansie’s life,” Frans remarks. Bertha is married and is expecting her second child. Cronje, who died at 33 in a plane crash, did not have children.

The other difficulty was the fund crunch. An American financer left the project midway. “It was difficult to keep it going. We were stranded without funding. But we put right structures in place and finally got everything right,” Frans says. The total budget of the movie was 42 million rands, (about Rs 35 crore). The film was shot in India and England. By South African standards, it was an expensive movie.

But Frans says he hopes to recover the money by releasing the movie in India, Australia, New Zealand, England and in the US. “We are a little bit frustrated that the movie has not been released in India yet. You know how complicated things are in India. But we are hoping to release it sometime in July. We have got tremendous support from all over the world, including India. We have got emails asking why the film is not being released in India. Hansie was very popular in South Africa too. We will have an annual golf day on Hansie’s anniversary. It will be seven years since Hansie died.”