The Caretaker is a multifaceted project comprising a film, a pumflet publication and a series of public interventions centered on research into the Rhodes Cottage Museum in Cape Town, the last resting place of the British colonial industrialist Cecil John Rhodes, a diamond mining mogul who helped expand the British Empire in southern Africa in the 19th century, and served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Although he owned several lavish properties, he chose a humble seaside cottage with fresh air to take his last breath, due to a life-long respiratory disease. The Botswana based, South African writer Bessie Head said that “[Rhodes] took everything from them except the air,” later correcting herself to affirm that he even took the air—“as you walk in Southern Africa today, as a Black person, you feel choked.
What is today the Rhodes Cottage Museum & Tea Room, once served as a fisherman’s cottage belonging to Filipino migrants at the turn of the 18th century. Its land is contested, once in the custodianship of indigenous people of the Cape and beyond. Set in late 1940s Muizenberg, The Caretaker film follows Meshet, a solitary man living beside Rhodes’s decaying estate. He unofficially maintains the house and grounds, his days shaped by quiet rituals of care and survival. When the City Council announces plans to convert the property into a museum and appoint a “proper” caretaker, Meshet faces eviction. Blending realism and surrealist elements, the project is a haunting meditation on memory, identity and the costs of survival in the shadow of empire. It asks: who gets to keep their home, and who gets written into history?
Commissioned as part of the Dirijah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026, which runs from January 30 to May 2 at the JAX District in Diryah, Saudi Arabia, the first iteration of the project is a multimedia installation incorporating the film, props pertaining to the film set and an installation design which responds to the project themes.
Credits
Cast
David Isaacs (as Meshet)
Jacques Adrianse (as Deputy Town Clerk)
Richard September (as Radio presenter)
Masello Motana (as Gladys)
Carlo Daniels (as Fisherman 1)
Asamkela Ketelo (as Fisherman 2)
Malik Ntone Edjabe (as Fisherman 3)
Eldon van der Merwe (as Postman)
Traci Kwaai (as Waterblommetjie picker 1)
Fatima Ali (as Waterblommetjie picker 2)
Production team
Director: Ilze Wolff
Producer: Malik Ntone Edjabe
Executive producers: Ilze Wolff and Heinrich Wolff
Screenwriter: Mathapelo Mofokeng
Story development and dramaturgy consultant: Richard September
Assistant director: Richard September
Script supervisor: Malik Ntone Edjabe
1st production assistant: Ané Meyer
2nd production assistant: Danielle Bruintjies
Location scout: Jardin Roestorff
Director of photography: Meekaaeel Adam
1st AC: Pascale Schoeman
2nd AC: Hannah Constantine
Gaffer: Anwar Misbach
Best boy: Waseem Valli
Sound recordist: Maccoh Pingiriasi
Boomswinger: Abonga Xatyisiwe
Art director: Valma Pfaff
Set design assistant: Eve Dumont
Mask & puppet designer: Eve Dumont
Stylist: Masello Motana
Make-up artist: Evelyn Gambe
Editor: Malik Ntone Edjabe
Sound design & mix: Malik Ntone Edjabe
Score recording and composition: Keegan Steenkamp
Charcoal drawings & animation design: Themba Khumalo
Visual effects: Wandile Abrahamse
Colourist: Abdul Samaai
Filmed on location at
Rhodes Cottage Museum
Muizenberg, Cape Town
Commissioned by
Diriyah Biennale Foundation for the Dirijah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026