Kill Your Darlings is a house for film as process as well as production.
Created by Hein de Vos, the company acts as a custodian of visual story telling.
It gives form to the in-between space from creation to production of film and the associated inventive arts.
To 'kill your darlings' is to be rid of all that is not vital.
The literary phrase was coined by William Faulkner and made popular by Jack Kerouac and the beat generation.
As a concept, it is employed when evaluating ideas during the creative phase;
to kill your darlings is to know when to let go of precious thoughts or elements that have become irrelevant or redundant.
As a time-traveler across the generations, the well-thumbed phrase is positioned to capture the movement
and change over time that is the process of film-making, from inception to creation.
Hein studied graphic art and photography. After graduating, he started working on camera in the early 1990s,
the boom years of the film and Television advertising industry in South Africa.
He was privileged to work with some of the world's best filmmakers, and counts this experience as invaluable
in the learning and honing of his craft.
During a career that spans almost two decades, he has worked on numerous feature films:
District 9, Mr Bob, I Dreamed of Africa, 10 000 BC, The Poseidon Adventure, Catch a Fire, Doomsday,
The Diamond Hunters, as well as an array of local and international television shows like the
BBC's History of America and History of the World. His camera work includes music videos for
Seal, Dido, Robbie Williams, Will Young and Mandoza, as well as more than 300 international television commercials,
and a wide spectrum of documentaries.
Hein directed and produced the independent documentary Rocklands.
He directed and co-wrote three short films: Orgie (2007) Dinner for Three (2009), and Thanks Dad (2010),
and is in post-production for a short film he directed titled La Turque (2011).
Hein lives in Cape Town, with his two bilingual black cats.