
Acting
Ian Roberts
Born
1951-11-30 (74)
Place of birth
Fort Beaufort, South Africa
Known for
Acting
Credits
56 titles
Ian Roberts is a South African actor, playwright and singer best known to television viewers for his roles in the drama series Arende and Snitch, and as the character Boet in a series of long-running advertisements for Castrol motor oil. Roberts was born in Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape and raised on a citrus farm near the town. He attended St. Andrew's Preparatory School and St. Andrew's College in Grahamstown. After completing high school he performed his compulsory national service in the South African Army, which he completed in 1971. After a variety of different jobs and a course in photography at the Port Elizabeth Technical College from 1973 to 1975, Roberts enrolled at Rhodes …
Known for
2.8The Wild is a South African soap opera created by Rohan Dickson, Richard Nosworthy and Bronwyn Berry and produced by M-Net's in-house production arm Magic Factory and shot entirely on location which revolves around three families – the Lebones, the van Reenens and the Tladis - who, because of past conflicts, struggle to negotiate a cohesive future, despite being bound together by their relationship to a special piece of land.
The Wild
2011
7.2A young girl from London moves to Africa with her parents where she befriends a lion cub.
Mia and the White Lion
2018
6.0A series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.
The Play on One
1988
6.9A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.
Tsotsi
2005
5.6In 1994 South Africa, the daughter of a multiracial couple is kidnapped. She escapes and as an adult becomes a detective. Continuing to deal with her past trauma, Reyka Gama uses her skills to raise her child and solve mysteries that have challenged others.
Reyka
2021
6.3Renowned safari hunter Allan Quatermain is lured back into the unknown recesses of the African jungles to find a man who disappeared while searching for the fabled King Solomon's Mines--a destination of legendary riches from which no soul has ever returned alive.
King Solomon's Mines
2004
Film credits
2020s · 2 titles
7.3A 70-year old man abducts his dementia-suffering wife from her retirement home and goes on the run from both the police and his adult children.
A Kind of Madness
2025
NR“Pusha Pressa Phanda” is a dissection of freedom. Taking place in one day, the film follows street youth Mandisa as she struggles to obtain medication and sanitary pads for her sister who is under her care. Faced with numerous obstacles along the way, Mandisa represents the struggle inherently facing women in their relentless pursuit for survival.
Pusha Pressa Phanda
2021
2010s · 11 titles
7.2A young girl from London moves to Africa with her parents where she befriends a lion cub.
Mia and the White Lion
2018
5.6When Gummer is hired to capture a deadly creature terrorizing South Africa, he and his new sidekick, Travis Welker, engage in another battle of survival against the fiercely aggressive Graboids.
Tremors 5: Bloodlines
2015
Handsome young vampire Billy (Andre Frauenstein) seems to have finally found his true love in Jenny Shapiro (Rikki Brest), a beautiful young woman he meets at a nightclub. Despite efforts by those around them to keep the two apart, including Billy's past love Lisa (Christina Storm), they appear to be destined for one another. Their happiness is suddenly cut short when a scientist researching a treatment for HIV/AIDS accidentally discovers a serum that will allow vampires to walk in the daylight with humans. This leads to an all-out war between vampires; those who are against the serum and those who would use it to leave the shadows of night, including vicious upstart vampire Borlak (David James) who will stop at nothing to obtain it. Billy and police detective Joe Kau must now work together to protect Jenny and her family, and to keep this discovery from those who would use it against all of humanity
Eternity
2010
7.0A family drama on the dangers of sweeping years of truth under the carpet and hoping for the best. A teenage girl, Engela, visits the Karoo farm of her uncle Frans and aunt Koba during the school holidays. A journey of discovery starts: she has to find out who she really is and where she comes from. Three visitors in one week change her life forever and her uncle’s obsession with the rugby try by Mannetjies Roux is at last explained.
Stuur Groete Aan Mannetjies Roux
2013
5.1Rugby hero, Wimpie Koekemoer, and his wild friends return to our screens in the third instalment of the successful Bakgat! movies. Newly engaged couple, Wimpie and Katrien, move to London where Wimpie has received a contract to play rugby. However, he has to face stark reality when he arrives and realises that his dreams of fame and fortune were only an illusion. His apartment is everything but the palace he had imagined - and his teammates make his life unbearable from the get go.
Bakgat 3
2013
NRThis is a story of a talented and ambitious musician who faces a major crossroads in his life. Paul’s career has progressed to the point where he plays his own music in pubs, but he has struggled to go beyond that. It is a hand-to-mouth existence and Paul and his girlfriend, Sera, struggle to keep the bank balance in check. However, one day an important music producer sees Paul play and, realizing he has talent, offers him a big contract. Paul throws caution to the wind and signs the deal, certain that this is his big break. Unfortunately, the fine print in the contract stipulates that Paul make the kind of commercial music he vowed he never would, and also forces him to act under a stage name. Now, Paul must decide if he is willing to sell his soul for financial stability. And whatever he decides, he realizes that it will have a lasting effect on his career and on his life.
Musiek Vir Die Agtergrond
2013
7.5Van der Merwe, a bumbling farmer from a traditional Afrikaans family, struggles to keep his family together when his daughter returns from England with her British fiancé and family.
Van der Merwe
2017
4.8The story is about 17-year-old Hendri who is forced to end up on the doorstep of his senile, withdrawn grandfather in a retirement home. Hendri soon realizes that there are so many more secrets hidden here than he could ever guess and that the biggest secret of all may just cost him the love of his life.
The Windmill
2014
6.0The Unitas u/21 rugby team hero, Wimpie Koekemoer, is offered a contract to play rugby in England. Katrien rehearses a play with autistic children, while doing everything in her power to keep Wimpie in the country. Fanie is struggling to get used to Christie's post-high school chubby body and Japie is experiencing a very embarrassing problem in his sexual pursuit of Liezl... Muscle man, Werner "Killer" Botha joins the Unitas rugby team and threatens Wimpie's position in the team. (Written by Henk Pretorius)
Bakgat 2
2010
10.0As a kid in the eighties in South Africa, Lukas dreams of becoming a quarter mile racing champ. His mom tells him to stay away from those people because they are Racists. Lukas is too young to know what a racist is and hears it as 'Race-ist'. The Film follows his journey as a young man in modern South Africa where the limitation of color no longer applies.
The Race-Ist
2010
5.5Mia Moolman works for a Sandton-based event coordination company that has been commissioned by the department of Trade and Industry to create an event celebrating the most successful ad campaigns in South African history. The gala event will happen at Emperors Palace, and the CEO of the company, Theodore, has asked his employees to pitch ideas for the show and whoever comes up with the best idea will be awarded a promotion and a special bonus. Mia comes up with the idea to make the three guys from the old Castrol commercials, Boet, Swaer and Mogae, part of the show. Her boss eventually agrees to this, but Mia must go and find them in the Kalahari and bring them to Emperors Palace in time for the big gala event. Will she get them to the big show in time?
Babalas
2013
2000s · 7 titles
6.9A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.
Tsotsi
2005
5.4Inspired by the true story of indomitable Kuki Gallmann, the film tells of a beautiful and inquisitive woman who had the courage to escape from her comfortable yet monotonous life in Italy to start anew in the African wilderness with her son, Emanuele, and her new husband, Paolo. Gallmann faces great danger there but eventually becomes a celebrated conservationist.
I Dreamed of Africa
2000
5.8Sarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.
Red Dust
2004
5.9A three-paneled look at the worldwide AIDS crisis: in Montreal, a porn actor schemes to pass his mandatory blood test; a young nun makes a personal sacrifice for the benefit of a South African village; in rural China, a black market operative posing as a government-sanctioned blood drawer jeopardizes an entire village's safety
3 Needles
2005
7.0Set on a game reserve in Africa. Askari is an angry old elephant, the only survivor of the "A' family group which has been anhilitated in a government cull and he has turned rogue. Involved in the culling are Patrick Khumalo, a corrupt government official and Ribshaw, an unscrupulous white poacher accompanied by Ndhlovu, an old African tracker who is being blackmailed by Ribshaw. Anxious to save the elephants are game warden Joss Mckinley and his conservationist wife Paula who is studying and monitoring various family groups of elephants. When Paula's sixteen year old niece Emma Crawshay is orphaned she is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at Morena Game Park. She feels alienated but is gradually drawn into her aunt's passion for her work and her favourite elephant family the 'O' group, in particular a calf named Ollie.
Askari
2001
5.7Katrien (Cherié van der Merwe) is dumped by her boyfriend, high school rugby star Werner (Altus Theart), so he can focus his energy on the sport. To get even, she makes a bet with her friends that she can make a star out of the school's dorkiest boy, 'Wimpie' Koekemoer (Ivan Botha), by pretending to be his girlfriend. The awkward Koekemoer rises to the challenge but Katrien finds herself falling unexpectedly in love with him, until he realizes she is merely using him.
Bakgat!
2008
No synopsis available yet.
Number 10
2006
1990s · 12 titles
7.4PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.
The Power of One
1992
4.4Dolph Lundgren is Christian Erickson, a leading demolition expert trained to disarm mine fields in a humanitarian minesweeping operation in Angola. His son is killed and he discovers that mines are being planted during the war to kill people in the area.
Sweepers
1998
6.8A South-African preacher goes to search for his wayward son who has committed a crime in the big city.
Cry, the Beloved Country
1995
4.3Tarzan returns to his homeland of Africa to save his home from destruction.
Tarzan and the Lost City
1998
4.1A cop tries to stop a scientist's experiments to turn students into cyborg-mercenaries.
Cyborg Cop III
1995
7.3Follows the deterioration of an Afrikaner family isolated and shunned in the small community of Toorwater. Nothing seems to happen. Then a circus train loses its way and comes to rest in Toorwater, and a mysterious clown brings fresh magic to the stagnating family, but he also poses a threat to the rest of the community.
Paljas
1998
5.8This controversial political thriller, which provoked mass demonstrations and nine deaths in South Africa when it was first shown, gives dramatic form to the African National Congress's basic program of reconcilliation within a non-racialist, democratic society. A train massacre by an Inkatha militant causes the sole witness to the crime to flee the Soweto townships to take refuge in Johannesburg; but the violence follows him when his ANC comrades try to buy guns for a retaliatory raid against Inkatha supporters.
In a Time of Violence: The Line
1994
7.0Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine both received Emmy nominations for their performances in this made-for-TV movie. The plot follows Nelson Mandela's 27-year struggle to end apartheid.
Mandela and de Klerk
1997
6.0Robey Leibbrandt was a South African boxer who became fascinated with Nazi ideology during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In1939 he led an operation to overthrow the pro-Allied government of General Jan Smuts.
The Fourth Reich
1990
4.8A South African political prisoner is tortured to obtain information on apartheid conspirators. Ten years later, the head officer in charge of the questioning is similarly held as prisoner and questioned about his past offenses.
Inside
1996
6.0Kalahari Harry is a noble story of the plight of the Kalahari bushman in their struggle for land and survival. A rich Johannesburg business man Mr. Kowalski is sent to the Northern Cape (home of the indigenous bushman), to asses the potential of building a state-of-the-art casino. Kalahari Harry, a member of the local Bushman tribe is decidedly opposed to this corporate move and sets into motion a series of ingenious plans to prevent this from happening.
Kalahari Harry
1994
5.7With issues of his own, an ex-army officer-turned-lawyer defends an impoverished young cowherd of killing a baby.
A Reasonable Man
1999
1980s · 10 titles
4.5Jane and the Colonel must journey to Africa to the lost city to retrieve the diamonds before the Nazis do. Comedy based on the popular wartime comic strip.
Jane and the Lost City
1987
6.0This time, Leon Schuster plays a filmmaker who is making a candid camera movie, only to discover that another filmmaker has stolen his ideas and is making the identical picture. How so? It seems that the thieving rival is blackmailing Schuster´s girlfriend. With the help of his friends and an ingenious talking cap that he designed himself, the good director manages to outwit the baddie, get the girl and make the country laugh.
You Must Be Joking! Too
1987
6.0Sy Winter, a young idealistic American, becomes stranded high in the mountain woods. Attracted by the beautiful Tanya, he is trapped into working for her violent husband and his decrepit wheelchair-bound father. As the ominous surroundings deepen his tortured desires for Tanya, his fantasies become reality and Sy is plunged into a nightmare of murder and revenge from which he cannot escape until he faces his own tortured nightmares.
Dancing in the Forest
1988
6.5Movie version cut from the TV series (Arende) Epic drama of honor, passion and freedom set during the Anglo-Boer War and follows the bound fates of rebellious Boer farmer Sloet Steenkamp and Captain of the British Army James Kerwin. A period drama of a time when Britain colonised by might in Southern Africa. Sloet was a Cape Colonist who refused to surrender to the new rule, and was one of the Cape rebels. After being captured he and many others were taken captive and sent to British concentration camps in Saint Helena where Sloet was doomed to stay forever
Cape Rebel
1989
5.9Military-Comedy. Sequel to "Boetie gaan border toe". Boetie (Translated into English as 'Buddy' or "Brother") wants to win his girlfriend Liza back, who just dumped him. With the help of some money, he engineers that she is assigned as reporter to the planned manoeuvres, where he would love to impress her. However, things turn out different as Buddy and his comrades are assigned to do the manual labour during the manoeuvres, and the arrogant Captain humiliating them turns out to be Liza's new boyfriend. But when a bunch of criminal madmen disturb the manoeuvre and take a hostage, it is up to Buddy and his comrades to rescue the hostage, their honour - and the girl's love.
Wild Maneuvres
1985
South African TV Movie
Heroes
1986
South African TV Movie
Anna Meintjies
1983
South African TV Movie
The Horse Smuggler
1982
NRSteve is a zoologist who does research on poisonous snakes with the help of his friend Thabo. He and his wife Katrien are newly weds and very much in love but Steve's dangerous occupation casts a shadow over Katrien's happiness and causes tension between them. Sonja, an aspiring artist and Katrien's best friend, visits the couple and seeks inspiration for her paintings. She becomes aware of sinister undercurrents and a series of strange murders start feeding her anxiety. Will an unexpected discovery seal her fate?
Night of Fear
1986
A South African girl guides anti-apartheid guerrilla fighters across the border from Botswana to South Africa.
The Crossing
1988
Series credits
2.8The Wild is a South African soap opera created by Rohan Dickson, Richard Nosworthy and Bronwyn Berry and produced by M-Net's in-house production arm Magic Factory and shot entirely on location which revolves around three families – the Lebones, the van Reenens and the Tladis - who, because of past conflicts, struggle to negotiate a cohesive future, despite being bound together by their relationship to a special piece of land.
The Wild
2011
6.0A series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.
The Play on One
1988
5.6In 1994 South Africa, the daughter of a multiracial couple is kidnapped. She escapes and as an adult becomes a detective. Continuing to deal with her past trauma, Reyka Gama uses her skills to raise her child and solve mysteries that have challenged others.
Reyka
2021
6.3Renowned safari hunter Allan Quatermain is lured back into the unknown recesses of the African jungles to find a man who disappeared while searching for the fabled King Solomon's Mines--a destination of legendary riches from which no soul has ever returned alive.
King Solomon's Mines
2004
9.0A South African Afrikaans series about broken families and the lies and deceit within them and how sins committed to do good can come back to haunt families when they least expect it.
Erfsondes
2007
NREpic drama follows a group of Boers during significant events in South African history. The first series is primarily set on St. Helena and follows the lives of Boer prisoners-of-war at Deadwood Camp. Among them is Sloet Steenkamp, a Cape Rebel whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the island. The second series shifts to post-war mainland South Africa, where the Boers, though returned, still struggle for freedom. New characters are introduced, including Meisie, who is mute due to trauma, and her mother Cornelia, who seeks revenge. In the third series, Sloet and his friends, yearning to escape British rule, embark on the Dorsland Trek, a perilous journey across the Kalahari Desert in search of freedom beyond South Africa's borders.
Arende
1989
5.9Cape Town. Police captain Mat Joubert used to be the best, solved every crime, got every killer. But that was a year ago, before his wife Lara was murdered while working undercover. Mat's been on a downward spiral ever since, haunted by a blurred past, uncertain which role he played in the murder of his wife. Now Mat is an out of shape chain smoker who is ambivalent about the crime-ridden world around him. Gradually, Mat begins to overcome the ghosts of his past. But in order to stop the violence of his current cases he must relive the nightmare of his wife's murder.
Cape Town
2016
8.5Onder Draai die Duiwel Rond is a South African television drama series created and written by Chris Barnard and produced by Sonneblom Films about beautiful people, good wine and respectable neighbours living on the banks of the Hartebeespoort Dam with lives that are seemingly idyllically peaceful and romantic, but which harbour deep secrets just beneath the surface of the facade.
Onder Draai Die Duiwel Rond
1997
9.0The infamous poisoner, Daisy Louisa de Melker (née Hancorn-Smith) was born on 1 July 1886 near Grahamstown. Daisy was charged with the murder of her two previous husbands and her son. Her trial began in October 1932 before Judge Greenberg in Johannesburg. Daisy was not found guilty of the murder of her two previous husbands, but she was found guilty of the murder of her son. On 30 December 1932, Daisy was hanged in Pretoria Central Prison, without ever pleading guilty or showing any remorse. Daisy was the second woman in South Africa to be hanged.
Daisy de Melker
1993
7.0A game show in which top Afrikaans music artists and their fans battle it out in the studio in a tough music quiz.
Musiekpaniek
2020
10.0The drama series moves between the present and the nineties in Langkloof where Lisa and Henriëtte share their close teenage friendship and dreams, but a series of dark secrets ultimately drive the two apart.
Appels en Tee
2025
8.0Arsenaal is a South African, Afrikaans-language thriller drama television series created, written and directed by Jan Scholtz and produced by his production company Scholtz Films which is set against the backdrop of investigative journalism, corrupt security companies and corrupt police.
Arsenaal
2002
Pop le Roux is a beautiful, but relatively uneducated, boer girl from a poor family. The young men of the county all compete with each other to win her favor. The man she loves is Manie Cronjé, He is just as poor and Pop sees no chance of suffering further. She eventually marries Jan Greyling, the rich widower. Gradually she adapts to her new life and becomes a good wife for Jan.
Wasted Spring
1983
