Diek Grobler started animating in 2000 after a lifelong fascination with temporal disciplines. Animation proved to be the perfect vehicle for his narrative approach, combining his practices of painting, illustration, visual art, performance art and experimental theatre.
Grobler has created 20+ short films and animation for live theatre and musical performance, working with a number of significant South African musicians. His films have travelled the international festival cicuit since 2005.
In 2004 Grobler developed three episodes for a children’s environmental series called Sanna’s Garden.The series was never completed due to a lack of funding.
Diek Grobler’s first independent short film Little Bang was produced by his company Fopspeen Moving Pictures . Directed by Grobler, the film was animated together with the co-founder of Fopseen, Charles Badenhorst – who also did the sound design. The puppets and sets were created by visual artist Marinda du Toit.
Through his animation company Grobler has animated and directed music videos for well-known South African artists Karin Hougaard and Karin Zoid amongst others, and worked on KykNet television network series Blikskottel and Uit Die Bloute. Short-form animation films include Agenda and Please frog, just one sip.
Diek Grobler’s love of poetry and experimental film led him to explore animated poetry in 2010, creating animated visuals for live poetry performances of South African poet Danie Marais. This eventually led to the realisation an animated poetry project, Filmverse, in 2014 and 2016, for which he was the creative director.
In Duitsland. Poem by Danie Marais, animation by Diek Grobler (2010).
Saturday Night Live. Poem by Danie Marais, animation by Diek Grobler (2010).
Klein Cardo. Poem by Ronelda S. Kamfer, animation by Diek Grobler (2012).
RECENT PROJECTS
Diek Grobler was invited to present his project Laaste Woord at the Annecy animated film festival 2018 MIFA pitching competition. Inspired by a poem Vanishing Voices, by South African poet Martjie Bosman, it is a film about the loneliness of the last survivor of a language, a culture, and a generation. The film adresses the extinction of the world’s languages.
The film was completed in 2023. The film combines traditional and digital animation techniques such as cut-outs, drawing on paper, and 2D digital animation effects.
PREVIEW CLIP
PROJECT DIARY: Last Word (2018)
Project development diary for the animation ‘Last Word’.
