Charles Badenhorst

Charles Badenhorst (b. 1972, Pretoria, South Africa) is an animator, filmmaker, sound designer, musician, and educator based in Pretoria. He studied construction management and sound engineering before pursuing a career in animation and experimental filmmaking. In 2004, he co-founded the independent animation studio Fopspeen Moving Pictures with animator Diek Grobler. Through this collaboration, Badenhorst has contributed to a distinctive body of South African animation that combines stop-motion, collage, drawing, sound composition, and experimental visual storytelling.

Badenhorst’s multidisciplinary practice spans animation, cinematography, lighting, editing, sound design, and music composition. His work frequently engages poetry, memory, social history, and political experience, foregrounding the relationship between visual language and sound. Drawing on handcrafted animation techniques and analogue processes, his films explore themes of displacement, injustice, identity, vulnerability, and human connection.

His collaborative productions with Fopspeen Moving Pictures have screened widely at film and animation festivals in South Africa and internationally, including the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the Animafest Zagreb, and the Poetry Film Festival Vienna. These works have received multiple awards and nominations, including recognition at the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs).

Badenhorst is best known for the animated poetry film What abou’ de lô (2014), based on a poem by Nathan Trantraal. The film reflects on apartheid-era segregation laws and interracial relationships criminalised under apartheid legislation, particularly the Immorality Act (1957) and the broader system of apartheid racial classification. Combining animated typography, archival resonance, and expressive sound design, the work interrogates systems of racial oppression while affirming dignity, intimacy, and resistance. The film received international acclaim and won the main award at the Poetry Film Festival Vienna in 2016.

In addition to his filmmaking practice, Badenhorst has worked extensively in arts education, teaching animation and visual storytelling in schools and community programmes in Pretoria, including initiatives supporting children with learning disabilities. His practice reflects an ongoing commitment to experimentation, collaboration, and the role of animation as a socially engaged artistic medium.

References

Fopspeen Moving Pictures. n.d. About Us. Available at: Fopspeen Moving Pictures [Accessed 8 May 2026].

Fopspeen Moving Pictures. n.d. Festivals and Awards. Available at: Fopspeen Festivals and Awards [Accessed 8 May 2026].

Poetry Film Festival Vienna. n.d. What about the law. Available at: Poetry Film Festival Vienna – What about the law [Accessed 8 May 2026].

ESAT. n.d. Fopspeen Moving Pictures. Available at: ESAT – Fopspeen Moving Pictures [Accessed 8 May 2026].