Well folks, it has been a month now since Dr. Sotha started our regular Friday morning Africa-AICN column and in today's edition Father Geek learned a NEW word... Afrikaansploitation. Boy, that's a mouthful, ain't it? I wonder, would LETHAL WEAPON 2 qualify? Or DANGEROUS GROUND? Or CRY FREEDOM? Or...? What do you think?
Remember, you can checkout any Africa-AICN stories you may have missed by clicking that "More AICN" box over there on the left and following the correct links into the depths of AICN's archives. Now here's Dr. Sotha...
Good day fellow AICNers. DR. SOTHA here for AfricaAICN #4. Thanks to all who
contributed to another full round-up of news from the continent. Now if I
could just find a contact in Egypt, who could brief me on the industry
there, that would just be great. (I am fluent in heiroglyphics. That is how
you spell it, right?)
While performing an incision on a patient's abdomen
(Mena Suvari - it's perfect), I got to thinking that it would light up my
day away from the knife if African actresses and actors alike sent me their
success stories from all over the world. Pictures (provocative or otherwise)
are also most welcome at AfricaAICN@hotmail.com Now onto this week's cure...
SOUTH AFRICA
Good day fellow AICNers. DR. SOTHA here for AfricaAICN #4. Thanks to all who
contributed to another full round-up of news from the continent. Now if I
could just find a contact in Egypt, who could brief me on the industry
there, that would just be great. (I am fluent in heiroglyphics. That is how
you spell it, right?)
While performing an incision on a patient's abdomen
(Mena Suvari - it's perfect), I got to thinking that it would light up my
day away from the knife if African actresses and actors alike sent me their
success stories from all over the world. Pictures (provocative or otherwise)
are also most welcome at AfricaAICN@hotmail.com Now onto this week's cure...
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA
* Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I) is writing and directing an autobiographical account of growing up in Swaziland, South Africa, called WAH-WAH. It follows a young Richard rubbing arms with royalty in colonial times, dealing with his parents' divorce, and his father's drunken escapades, leading into his love for theater and acting. Sandy Powell (Velvet Goldmine, Shakespeare in Love) is set to create the costumes for the period, and Richard is rounding up an eclectic cast of solid character actors such as Ian Holm, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, etc.
* BIG WORLD CINEMA has optioned the film and television rights for the critically acclaimed novel VATMAAR written by Ahm Scholtz, in association with Amsterdam-based First Floor Features. It is slated as two separate productions - a television version and a feature-length version. Marion Bloem, a Dutch director, is the lead candidate to direct the feature version.
* A South African screenplay called "RHYTHM OF THE HEART" by South African authors Rod Kruger and his son Douglas has been accepted for sale by a Hollywood agency. (Can anyone out there tell me who? CAA? ICM? William Morris?) Rhythm, a romantic drama now in its third draft, will go on sale in the USA in August. Rod Kruger is a long-time TV and video producer currently working at Tri-Media in Ferndale. Douglas has just completed a trip to America and Israel, and hopes to become an author in the style of James Michener.
* The FHM ( For Him Magazine) July issue released its opinion of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World. South Africa was responsible for 14 of them, including indie actress Bianco Amato at #90, talk show presenter Irene Bester at #64, former Miss Universe Michelle Mclean at #44, and Charlize Theron clocking in at #8. Who was number 1 you ask? ?hy none other than Jennifer "I can do no wrong" Lopez. (I guess her ass didn't faze the voters.)
* If you are lucky enough to be a sattelite subscriber, and enjoy Afrikaans films and documentaries, then look no further then M-NET's "Kyknet". You will find a new documentary "Ontmoeting met tyd", which is probably the most comprehensive doc about the Kalahari desert ever made; "Die Kandidaat", which was made in the '70s and qualifies as a sort of Afrikaansploitation, never received a decent theatrical release, but will now get its just reward on pay television. (In my best Afrikaans, "gee dit a kans" - DR. SOTHA.)
* Three of the Close Encounters Documentary Laboratory 1999 films commissioned by e.tv won three of the top four Documentary Awards at the National Television and Video Association (NTVA) Avanti Awards on Saturday 3 June. "MY AFRICAN MOTHER" by Cathy Winter won an Avanti for Best Documentary; "THE FIGHT" by Eddie Edwards and "JG STRIJDOM is Very, Very Dead" by Pule Diphare both won Silver Awards. Collectively, the films won six craft awards.
* Dutch documentary filmmaker Hille Mollenaar will exhibit her work and talk about the documentary making process at the Cape Chapter of SASWA (South African Sreenwriters Association) which will take place on 30 June.
* Ross Kettle (veteran T.V. actor on '80s staples "Murder She Wrote" and "Hunter") is wrapping up "AFTER THE RAIN" his directorial debut starring Ariyon Bakare, Paul Bettany and Louise Lombard.
* "ANGELS IN A CAGE" is a thriller that is set to be helmed by David Hickson (MTV-styled "Live at 5"). The film is said to use innovative techniques (in South Africa anyway - DR. SOTHA), that would add a dimension to the film noir mechanics of the plot. (Someone needs to make a kick-ass film noir in Africa, could this be the one?).
* DR. LOVESTRANGE, a fellow colleague, but half the doctor I am, reviews a co-production between South Africa and England called "BRAVO TWO ZERO".
DR. LOVESTRANGE here, taking over from DR. SOTHA, while he conducts brain transplants on certain Fox Executives. (It looks bleak, folks.) Anyway, I got a chance to see "Bravo Two Zero". This is the true story of the most highly decorated British patrol since the Boer War: an eight-man SAS team inserted behind Iraqi lines during the Gulf War in January 1991. Their mission was to take out the Scud missiles which Saddam Hussein was using to terrorize his enemies, as well as to sever strategic communication lines between Baghdad and Northwest Iraq. This top secret mission was called "Bravo Two Zero" and it was commanded by Sergeant Andy McNab. Of the eight who went out, only five returned. Dropped into "Scud alley" carrying 210-pound packs, McNab and his men soon found themselves surrounded by Saddam's army. Their radios didn't work; the weather was brutally cold. And they had been spotted. For the SAS, the Bravo Two Zero patrol has always been seen with mixed feelings. On one hand, its most famous action ever is a tale of remarkable endurance and heroism; on the other hand, only one of the eight-man patrol managed to escape death or capture. Okay, enough plot. Sean Bean is in top form as one of the officers, hard as a nut, and much better than his performance as 008 in Goldeneye. Since Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line were released I was convinced combat sequences in future films would never live up to Spielberg's and Malicks masterworks. I'm glad to say, though, that "Bravo Two Zero" - although certainly not better than the aforementioned films - allows the combat sequences to unfold in an authentic and deliberate manner. If you don't already know, this is based on a true story, shot with a sure hand by Tom Clegg (responsible for the Sharpe series, and penning Kelly's Heroes and The Italian Job). I haven't read the book that this is based on, so I can't say with absolute surety that it's a perfect translation, but for South African involvement, it's a good ambassador. And that's DR. LOVESTRANGE's demented thoughts for the week.
NORTH AFRICA
* Zambian-born actress Thandie Newton (MI2) will star in Metin Hüseyin's "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT" with Max Beesley (The Match), James Bolam (End of the Affair) and Cavan Clerkin. Oliver Parker is the screenwriter for this dramatic comedy produced in the UK.
* Tunisian filmmaker Suara Dlamini is prepping his new film titled "Zeezee" about a paleantologist who discovers fragments of bone structure left behind in World War II of a German officer, who is later discovered to be one of Hitler's right-hand men. Revelations transpire that could change a hypothetical history and the disparate future. (Sounds fascinating - DR. SOTHA)
* LOCO sent in this review on "Afrique, je te plumerai" (Africa, I Will Fleece You), a film that came out of Cameroon.
AFRIQUE, Je Te PLUMERAI provides a devastating overview of one hundred years of cultural genocide in Africa. Director Jean-Marie Teno uses Cameroon, the only African country colonized by three European powers, for a carefully researched case study of the continuing damage done to traditional African societies by alien neo-colonial cultures. Unlike most historical films, Afrique, Je Te Plumerai moves from present to past, peeling away layer upon layer of cultural forgetting. Teno begins with present-day cultural production in Cameroon, examining press censorship, government controlled publishing and the flood of European media and books. He next looks at his own Eurocentric education during the 1960s. "Study, my child," he was told, "so you can become like a white man." Condescending newsreels from the 1930s reveal that France conceived its "civilizing mission" as destroying traditional social structures and replacing them with a colonial regime of evolués (assimilated Cameroonians.) Survivors of the independence struggle recall how the French eliminated any popular nationalist leaders, installing a corrupt, bureaucratic regime which continues to pillage the country. Afrique, Je Te Plumerai develops what could be called an "anti-documentary" style - juxtaposing many conflicting types of images to decenter the eye. (Sounds good, I must track it down - DR. SOTHA).
* My friend "Djorkaeff" from France sent in this review of "Chef! and La tête dans les nuages" (Chief! and Head in the Clouds), which rather "twilight zoneish" is from the same director as the review above..
Jean-Marie Teno's two provocative new documentaries Chef! and La tête dans les nuages together with his earlier Afrique, je te plumerai offer the most searching critiques available on film of the political and economic stagnation facing many African states. At the same time, he introduces us to grassroots forces in civilized society and the informal economy which are usually overlooked by the Western media but which could point the way towards democratic development in Africa. In his most recent film, Chef!, Teno locates the roots of Africa's authoritarian regimes in the ancestral family, reinforced by traditional kingship and the colonial experience. Teno encountered a vigilante mob kicking and screaming at a 16-year-old boy who had stolen some chickens. A few hours after this, incident Teno bought a souvenir calendar listing "the rules and regulations of the husband in his home." These included: "The husband is always chief - even in bed;" " If the husband strikes the wife while visitors are present, she must smile and pretend that nothing has happened; etc. Teno wryly observes that if every husband is a chief then Cameroon is a nation of 7 million chiefs. The director of the Association for the End of Violence to Women points out that the husbands' dominance over his wife is guaranteed not only by tradition but the French Civil Code of 1804 still operative in Cameroon though long since revised in France itself. Teno interviews a number of Cameroonian human rights activists. President Paul Biya has disbanded most civic movements to protect what he calls "Cameroonian style" or "peaceful democracy." For example, in December 1997 Pius Njawe, editor of an opposition news weekly, Le Messenger, was arrested simply for asking if the President had left a football match because of ill health. Njawe was condemned to two years imprisonment in the horrifying, disease-ridden Newbell prison where 150 prisoners are crowded into 30' by 40' cells stacked three deep without a sewage system or adequate food. In prison, Njawe learned there was a fixed schedule of bribes that needed to be paid even to get a trial date; he came to perceive the Ministry of Justice as a giant business enterprise selling freedom. Cameroon's economy is also reflected in its schizophrenic education system. Cameroonians flock to the universities to acquire a colonial education which does not prepare them for the actual needs of the local economy. Teno concludes that Cameroon's economy is like a man with his feet in trash and his head in the clouds with nothing but chaos in between. (Great review-and certainly thought-provoking - DR. SOTHA).
* I tracked down bits of info on a film called "Dakan" (Destiny) which I was made aware of by "Rigobert Song" from Senegal. It premiered at the 98 Cannes Film Festival, and accumulated positive word of mouth. Check this quote out from Vareity.- 'Coming out' and seeking acceptance is nothing new; but in this small but heartfelt film it is given fresh life...A trailblazer in the African context." Le Monde gushed "One of the most original films showcased at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival." This is all I could find regarding plot/premise.It deals with homosexual love in contemporary Guinea. It allows us to see the dangers in supposing there can be a universal gay narrative and it is also a charming narrative (If anybody out there has seen it, send me your thoughts).
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
* Popular Jamaican (African) author Warwick Collins is adapting his best-selling novel "GENTS" into a feature film that will be joint financed by American and English production houses. Gents follows a Jamaican immigrant who gets a job as a toilet room attendant, in the underground tube in London. Him and his two co-workers are forced by the council, to deter gay men from using their urinals for sexual purposes (ahem George Michael, anyone? - DR. SOTHA). When they realize that these same people are helping them stay afloat, the plot takes an unexpected twist. Taye Diggs is the front runner for the lead, having played Jamaican before in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back".
AFRICAN COAXIAL
* Wilbur Smith, South Africa's most successful novelist, has just released his new book titled "MONSOON". Set in the 18th Century it revolves around colonial expansion and exploration of the period. It is garnering mostly positive word of mouth from local and international critics. He was interviewed on an English radio station, where he expressed interest in adapting one of his famous novels for the screen, probably one of his earlier ones, like "When the Lion Feeds". (Thanks to "DARGI").
Apologies for last week's question, which was phrased wrong. I wanted to know who directed Cry Freedom, and what film he won best director for at the Oscars. The answer was Richard Attenborough, and the film he won best director, was of course Ghandi. The prize gets carried over to next week (which is now 2 free physical check-ups with your favorite doctor - me). This week's question: what is the name of the South African Actress who played the "Borg Queen" in Star Trek: First Contact?
