About
Elaine was born in South Africa. She grew up in Johannesburg and in the African bush which she loves.
Along with a cohort of like-minded filmmakers, Elaine documented Black resistance to Apartheid in documentary films like Forward to a People’s Republic and The Sun Will Rise. She graduated from the London Film School and returned to South Africa to make the films Re Tla Bona and Sharpeville Spirit.
Elaine entered the master’s program in writing and directing fiction films at the National Film and Television School in England. Her feature-length graduation film On The Wire won the British Film Institute’s Sutherland Trophy for most original and imaginative first film. On The Wire is the story of the tragic marriage between a South African Defense Force reconnaissance battalion commander and his rural wife. We learn through their intimate relationship what damage the war exacted on both perpetrators and victims.
Elaine’s first film after graduation, Friends, explores the personal stories inside the political epic of South Africa’s journey to democracy. It was selected by the Cannes Film Festival to be part of its coveted Official Competition and was commended by the Mention Speciale – Prix de Camera D’Or in that year.
Her next film, Kin, set in the desert of Northern Namibia, dramatises the unfolding fate of the desert elephant and its complicated community of protectors. Kin was distributed worldwide to critical acclaim.
Elaine’s first novel, Rhumba, tells the story of Flambeau, a young Congolese boy, looking for his mother in London’s immigrant underworld.
She wrote The Savage Hour, a novel about a farming family in South Africa and its relationship with land, loyalty, and loss.
The Love Factory, is about love and desire as it plays out in a group of neighbourhood women living in the cultural melting pot that is London.
Elaine’s most recent novel Lily The Sinner is to be published spring, 2026. Lily is a botanist from South Africa’s rugged West Coast who tries to live an upstanding life in a collapsing world, and fails.
Elaine wrote Rosie The Truth, a mystery novel for publication in 2025 with her collaborator Zoe Elton under the pen name Zoe Laine. Rosie is part of London’s young independent film community. When the film she is making is threatened with IP theft she and her posse of young creatives go into battle.
Elaine and Zoe are working on a cozy mystery series, The Meditation Murders, which features charming sleuth Theodora Brown, her goddaughter Sam, and Spinach, their beloved and very clever rescue dog.
Elaine lives with her family in Little Venice, London. She sits on the chapter for screenwriting at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and is a member of the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain and BAFTA.
Awards
The Savage Hour – Shortlisted for the Sunday Times fiction prize in South Africa.
Rhumba – Shortlisted for the Anobii first book award.
Friends – Official Selection, Cannes Competition, 1993. Special Mention, Camera d’Or. M-Net Film Awards, South Africa, 1994 – Best Director, Best Writer.
On the Wire – British Film Institute Sutherland Trophy, for best first film.
Palesa – short film. National Film and Television School, Awarded Golden Dragon, Krakow Film Festival.
