Jamie Uys

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Jacobus Johannes Uys (30 May 1921 – 29 January 1996), better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director.

He made his debut as a film director in 1951 with the Afrikaans-language film Daar doer in die bosveld. He directed 24 films in total, including:

Dingaka (1965)
After You, Comrade (1967)
Lost in the Desert (1971)
Animals Are Beautiful People (1974)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1979)
Funny People II (1983)
The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)

Uys received the 1981 Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film de Comedy Vevey for The Gods Must Be Crazy, and in 1974 he received the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award for best documentary for Beautiful People.

The two Beautiful People films were documentaries about the plant and animal life in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana (and even Zimbabwe), especially desert creatures. A highlight was some elephants, warthogs, monkeys and other animals staggering around after eating rotten, fermented marula fruit. There was some criticism that some of the scenes were staged, for example the burning of a social weaver nest, as well as the marula scene mentioned above.

Jamie Uys' biggest and best known movie was The Gods Must Be Crazy. In this movie he used a bushman called N!xau in the lead role. This was a comedy in which a Coke bottle that was thrown out of an aeroplane, fell in the Kalahari desert and was found by the San tribe. As this was the only "modern" object in their world, it led to strife and it was decided that the bottle had to be returned to the Gods, who must have sent it in the first place. The character played by N!xau was given the task to return it.

The movie generated massive word-of-mouth success in America, Japan, Europe, and other territories, spawning a less successful sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II.

Uys' other well-known movie was Funny People in 1978, which was a comedy in the same genre as Candid Camera in the U.S., putting unsuspecting people in embarrassing positions. These included a talking postbox, with the voice of a man claiming to be trapped inside, who asks a passer-by for help. When the passer-by returns with his friends, the 'talking' postbox is silent, and his friends accuse him of being drunk. The sequel, Funny People II was released in 1983, and features a young Arnold Vosloo, who has since found fame in Hollywood.