Short documentary: Bliksems in Bothaville
He’s one wrestler in a community of 46 030 people in Bothaville, the heartland of the Free State. Roger Wilters is a big man with an array of tattoos on his arms and legs. His neighbours, Francois and Nakki Stimie, describe him as a gentle giant. To him, she’s “Auntie Nakki”, and to her, he’s “Roggie”. It is around Roger’s truly unique and moving story that the short documentary Bliksems in Bothaville revolves.
Roger’s faith is clearly an anchor for him – something that plays a huge role in his life and keeps him grounded amid disappointment and the feeling that he has failed his daughter.
By day, he works at the local fertilizer factory. And when he can, he trains in his backyard.
And Roger dreams. He dreams big, very big, both as Roger and as Kill Switch, his wrestling persona. There’s the heavyweight championship belt, and the hope that his daughter will be at the ringside when he lifts it high in victory …
Directors Tharine Pienaar and Saskia Hill share more about their short doc:
Why has wrestling, once popular in this town, dwindled down to just one wrestler?
Wrestling declined after its local champion, Tornado, moved abroad for work. That meant the last formal club, Rockstar Wrestling, had to close its doors.
A few of the former wrestlers still live in the area, like the man who owns and runs the local hardware store. But now Roger is the only active wrestler in Bothaville, and in that big chest of his, he carries a huge dream: to start a wrestling club again, – a dream factory where young people can be safe and dream big too.
Roger is 38 years old and was born in Koster, a rural town in Northwest. He spent most of his younger years in Witbank, but today he is a Bothaville local through and through.
It’s remarkable how boldly Roger shows his emotions in the documentary?
What may look like openness on camera, was actually a man navigating through an emotional storm. Roger had already experienced so much loss by the time we started filming. Our cameras started rolling when his heart was already overflowing.
Roger’s vulnerability touched all of us deeply at some point. There’s something incredibly honest about him. But the further we got into the process, the more we realised there was a lot of pain behind the smile. From the very beginning, Roger opened his heart to us. And it was beautiful. But it was also hard. His emotions aren’t just on the surface, they are deep, heavy and real.
For us as a crew, it was sometimes hard to keep filming, because his vulnerability washed over us like a wave. When you stand next to this gentle giant, you feel with him.
How does the community respond to Roger?
The community’s love for Roger is clear, but most people find his dream a little odd. They may not fully understand why a big man in a mask throws other big men around, but they support him because it comes from him. They’re not sold on the dream; they’re sold on the dreamer.
In the “contract signing” scene, one poor guy lands on the table. It looks like he got hurt. Was that real or staged?
What happened on that table was pure commitment to the world of wrestling. The man acted as if he’d been hurt so convincingly, that even the organisers got nervous. Branden Loughton (CEO of New South African Wrestling) and Matthew Hammar (COO of NSAW) went looking for ice for the “injured” man and shook their heads like this incident was just too much for them.
But once everyone had left the room, came the twist: it was all part of his strategy! It’s a wrestling rule: wrestling doesn’t end when the last blow lands in the ring, it ends when the last spectator leaves.
How long did you have to film everything?
Wrestling isn’t the only thing that needs planning, logistics do too! We had to travel from Cape Town all the way to Bothaville. First a flight, then a long road trip. Just one day for a recce, five days of filming, then back to Cape Town again with lots of coffee stops, a quiet Spur dinner and an interesting motel. It’s not for the faint-hearted!