New TV series on Pistorius

Pistorius‚ a four-part documentary series based on Oscar Pistorius’s rise to worldwide stardom and his fall from grace after the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp five years ago was released on Amazon Prime on Thursday.

Director Vaughan Sivell told Screen Daily that Oscar’s story and SA’s progress as a rainbow nation were intertwined.

“Modern SA‚ the country‚ and Oscar Pistorius were born a few years apart. One became the rainbow nation and one became the Blade Runner.

“And then suddenly the country and the man’s world had collided‚ with his arrest and trial. This seemed like a great thing to explore as a movie‚” he said.

Sivell told The Hindu that Pistorius achieved so much despite his challenges and SA became a rainbow nation.

“Then you jump forward to a point in history where Oscar is on trial and somewhere his defence team blames the state of South Africa where crime is so high that a rich‚ white man hears a bang in the night‚ grabs his gun and shoots,” he said.

“The history of the country and the history of the man sort of collided at that point.”

Pistorius shot Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013 when he fired four times through the door of his toilet – an act he maintained resulted from mistaking her for a burglar.

Pistorius was sentenced to six years in jail but this was extended to 13 years by the Supreme Court of Appeal.