A soundtrack by Bellville’s very own Loki Rothman, will feature in the latest South African romantic comedy, Jou Romeo.
The versatile guitar virtuoso’s talents know no bounds. He has already mastered most guitar genres, has a compelling voice, paints pictures worth a thousand words in the imaginations of listeners with his original lyrics and is a successful music producer as well.
Loki’s single, Ons Op Ons Eie, has also just dropped on radio stations across the country. This song is also available on the Afrikaans is Groot Vol. 9 album.
The family film, Jou Romeo, is about Marko Marais (Ruan Wessels) who is the most popular guy at Hoërskool Monument, a cricket star and heartthrob. He and the drama geek, Yvette (Elani Dekker), are two worlds apart, but true love prevails in this story about romance, Shakespeare, cricket, friendship and unconditional acceptance.
When Romeo and Juliet, the play that Yvette and her best friend Tyler (Christopher van der Westhuizen) have been planning since the eighth grade, gets jeopardised by the sports-fanatic principal, Mr Kirby Potgieter (Pierre Breytenbach) who cuts the arts and culture-budget, Yvette decides to call in Marko’s help.
But she doesn’t have Marko’s best interests at heart. Yvette later realises that there is more to him than just being a jock with a charming smile and loads of fans. And suddenly Marko also starts seeing the fiery redhead from a different perspective.
The song lyrics, as well as the creative mix of electro dance music, acoustic and pop elements, describe a tragic love scene in the film.
Producer Dries Scholtz says she had been following Loki on YouTube for a while but they never had the opportunity to meet.
“Loki contacted me on Facebook out of the blue and told me that he wanted to be involved with films. It was an easy decision for us to start working with him on the Jou Romeo project straight away. It was the first time that we produced a soundtrack especially for a film. Loki is an amazing talent and we look forward to working with him on the next film.”
Loki admits that it was challenging to write a whole series of songs by only using the visual material from the film as a reference.
“I couldn’t write just anything because the lyrics and melody had to blend in with what happens on screen. The songs are divided in such a way that half of them are English and the other half Afrikaans and various singers were used for each track.
“The last song that I wrote, Ons Op Ons Eie, was my favourite, and I really wanted to sing it myself. This song was also my first original Afrikaans single that was released. It’s something completely new to me as an artist and to those who know my previous music, even though the production and sound quality still resonates to that of my first album, The Way Back. In a way it’s like the Afrikaans version of it.”
Jou Romeo was produced by The Film Factory and opens in theatres on Friday December 23.