She has big shoes to fill and actress Zenobia Kloppers says she hopes everyone will give her new film, "Fiela se Kind", the chance it deserves.
A remake of the iconic film that has reached cult-status on the Cape Flats dropped on Friday, during Heritage Month.
Windhoek-born actress Zenobia, 45, plays the role of the most famous coloured auntie in South Africa,
Fiela Komoetie.
Fiela and her family own an ostrich farm in the Karoo, and when they find a lost white child, she decides to raise him as her own.
Nine years later, Benjamin Komoetie is taken away from Fiela and reunited with what is believed to be his
biological parents, poor woodcutters trying to make a living in the Knysna Forest.
The novel by Dalene Matthee was previously adapted into a film in 1988 by director Katinka Heyns and starred Shaleen Surtie-Richards as Fiela in a performance that was as iconic as the character who inspired it.
Asked if she knew about the remake earlier this year, Shaleen said: “Daar’s net een Fiela. Ek is al Fiela wat ek ken, en verder wiet ek niks. (There's only one Fiela. I'm the only Fiela that I know, and beyond that I know nothing)”.
The new film is directed by Brett Michael Innes and produced by Danie Bester.
Zenobia says the film isn’t an exact remake nor will it be an exact reflection of the book.
“I urge people to go watch this film, I am kind of biased when I say it, but I really think it’s one of the best you will see,” Zenobia says.