Izel Bezuidenhout

Izel Bezuidenhout (born 25 November 1998) is a South African actress. She began her career as a child actress. She is best known to international audiences for her roles in the films Flatland (2019) and Wild is the Wind (2022).

Early life and education
Bezuidenhout is from Pretoria. Her father Hannes is a pastor. Her mother is Lucia.

Bezuidenhout attended Hoërskool Eldoraigne in Centurion. In 2012, she enrolled in a summer school programme at the Royal Academy of Dance in London. She later took a six-month acting course in New York.

Career
Bezuidenhout was eleven when she landed her first theatre role and fourteen when she was cast in her first film, the 2014 teen spy thriller Agent 2000: Die Laksman as Chante-Amoré Naudé. The following year, she played a younger version of Charlene Brouwer's titular character in the film Dis ek, Anna and made her television debut in Bloedbroers.

Bezuidenhout went on to have further film roles in Mignon Mossie van Wyk (2016), Bram Fischer and Vaselinetjie (both 2017). In 2018, she joined the cast of the long-running soap opera 7de Laan as Kyla Welman. She later reprised her role in 2023.

Bezuidenhout starred opposite Nicole Fortuin in the 2019 film Flatland directed by Jenna Bass, which screened at Berlinale and the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

In 2021 and 2022, Bezuidenhout had roles in the third and fourth seasons of the kykNET crime anthology series Spoorloos, playing the recurring character Giselle in the former installment, titled Steynhof, and the main character Emma Eloff opposite Bobby van Jaarsveld in the latter installment, titled Die Eiland. She had met van Jaarsveld when she was a child at one of his concerts. Also in 2022, she appeared in the Netflix film Wild is the Wind.