South Africa's LEADING LADY Will Perform For US Audiences

Leading Lady leading lady, Katie McGrath, is best-known for her work as Morgana in BBC One's Merlin series. Here she plays an idealistic British drama teacher (McGrath is actually Irish) who travels to South Africa to prepare for a role as an Afrikaans war heroine. She convinces a dashingly dour Afrikaner farmer to help her (played by Afrikaner singer Bok van Blerk) (real name), and in exchange agrees to plan the annual farm concert. He, of course, becomes something more to her along the way, as does his odd family, and the boer way of life. 

It all seems rather rote, but feel good rom-coms are as popular in South Africa as anywhere else in the world. There is cause for optimism, though. Writer-director Henk Pretorius's previous film was Fanie Fourie's Lebola, about love between an Afrikaans man and Zulu woman, which transcended the rom-com tropes by tackling the film's cultural differences with surprising seriousness and sensitivity. 

Leading Lady hits South African theaters at the end of the month (Nov 28) and US theaters in summer 2015. Avengers: Age Of Ultron may have some competition...