There are some requests made by the people we love that become impossible to ignore after they are gone.
For many families, it is a simple wish: to be laid to rest beside a parent, a spouse, a sibling or someone else who mattered deeply to them.
The details differ across cultures and families, but the sentiment is familiar. Burial is not only about where someone’s body is placed. It can be one of the last ways a family honours the person they have lost.
That is the emotional heart of Winford Collings’ short film, “’n Poppy op die heuwel”, which premiered at this year’s kykNET Silwerskermfees.
The film follows siblings Laila and Josh, played by Lauren Joseph and Marunzo Thomas, who return to the Namaqualand farm where they spent much of their lives after the death of their grandmother, Poppy.
Laila is determined to honour Poppy’s wish to be buried alongside her mother, on land where generations of their family lived. There is just one problem: the farm has changed hands and its new owners refuse permission for the burial.
It is a simple premise, but Collings uses it to explore something much bigger than the logistics of where a funeral can take place.
What makes “’n Poppy op die heuwel” work is its refusal to rush through grief. The film is remarkably still, with stretches where very little dialogue is spoken, allowing the landscape, faces and pauses to carry the emotion.
That stillness feels particularly fitting for a story about losing someone.
When a person dies, fresh grief leaves you feeling their absence more profoundly than before. Their voice can come back in your head while you are driving.
A familiar song can transport you straight into a memory you thought you had packed away. You see something they used to own and, for a moment, it feels as though they could walk through the door.
Grief can make ordinary things feel heavy with meaning.
A quiet room can suddenly feel too quiet. A place you have visited a hundred times can look completely different because the person who made it special is no longer there. Those memories do not need an explanation. They arrive on their own.
Collings gives those emotions space rather than trying to explain them through constant dialogue.
He has spoken about wanting to challenge himself to tell the story visually, rather than relying heavily on dialogue, and that intention comes through in the film’s raw, restrained cinematography.
The landscape becomes part of the storytelling. So do the silences.
There is also something deeply familiar about Laila’s determination to give Poppy the send-off she wanted. Families will recognise the importance placed on getting these final rituals right.
The traditions may differ from household to household, but the underlying feeling is remarkably similar: when someone tells you what they want for their final farewell, you want to honour it.
That desire becomes even more complicated when the people left behind no longer have control over the place where that farewell was meant to happen.
For Laila, the problem is not simply that she cannot bury her grandmother where she wants. It is the realisation that the land her family once knew as home is no longer theirs to make decisions about.
Josh tells her: “This is no longer our place.”
It is a short sentence, but it carries a history that many South Africans will understand in different ways.
Collings has explained that the film was shaped by South Africa’s history of land possession and dispossession and the way that history continues to affect families.
Yet the film does not feel like it is delivering a history lesson. It puts that history into something personal: a family trying to honour their grandmother.
Stories about what people experience within their own communities deserve space on screen.
There is plenty to say about families dealing with loss, returning to places that have changed and trying to hold onto traditions that matter to them.
Death sits heavily over the film because it is one reality none of us can avoid.
There is no perfect way to prepare for losing someone. Knowing that death is inevitable does little to soften the shock of finding yourself in a room where a familiar voice has gone quiet.
“’n Poppy op die heuwel” understands that grief is not neat or predictable. It can make people stubborn. It can make them angry. It can also make them determined to fulfil one final request.
For Laila and Josh, that determination becomes a family affair.
They may not agree on everything, but they are united by the same loss and by the desire to do right by Poppy. That bond gives the film its warmth, even when the circumstances surrounding her burial are anything but comforting.
By the end, the question is no longer only about where Poppy should be laid to rest. It is about what we owe the people who raised us, loved us and left their mark on our lives.
A final resting place may seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of life, but for the people left behind, giving someone the farewell they asked for can become one of the last acts of love they are able to offer.
“’n Poppy op die heuwel” leaves behind a story about grief, love and the lengths people will go to honour someone they have lost. For those left behind, saying goodbye becomes a final act of love.
bernelee.vollmer@nationalmg.co.za