WOW! Father Geek loves posting this column. Not only does Dr. SOTHA have a fun, entertaining delivery style, but soooooooo much of the subject matter delt with here is totally unreported on in the States. Alot of the films covered in the other international reports on AICN get some sort of release over here. On video or DVD if not in the theaters, but African film... its nowhere to be found. Hopefully this column will help create a buzzzz about the many fine motion pictures the good Doctor brings to our attention and more of them will end up exposed to the light of day.
You can help by writing your local film festivals and Art Houses, and suggesting these movies be included on their programs. Bug your video store managers to acquire prints of the ones that interest you. That's a start anyway... I know there's a market for them here, we just have to stimulate it a little. If you have inside contacts at Artisan, Lion's Gate, October Films, USA, heck even the bigger boys like Miramax and Sony turn those suits on to these films, don't assume they know about them already. If you want to see these flicks we're going to have to work for it!
Good Day Readers, DR. SOTHA here for another edition of AfricaAICN. I was
confronted with a real problem this week. Here in the film wards, I was told
by a potential client (pink eye) that my methods were ludicrous (I insist on
working from the eyebrow in), so I told him to go waste his money and
disease on another Doctor, which is exactly the way I feel about this
column. If you don't like the way I practise, don't bother coming to my
surgery..
Now, those who are still in the waiting room forward your identities to my
frisky (see intolerant) nurse at The Front Desk.
Nurse, when I said use the clamps, I meant for the next medical
examination..
SOUTH AFRICA
Good Day Readers, DR. SOTHA here for another edition of AfricaAICN. I was
confronted with a real problem this week. Here in the film wards, I was told
by a potential client (pink eye) that my methods were ludicrous (I insist on
working from the eyebrow in), so I told him to go waste his money and
disease on another Doctor, which is exactly the way I feel about this
column. If you don't like the way I practise, don't bother coming to my
surgery..
Now, those who are still in the waiting room forward your identities to my
frisky (see intolerant) nurse at The Front Desk.
Nurse, when I said use the clamps, I meant for the next medical
examination..
SOUTH AFRICA
Nurse, when I said use the clamps, I meant for the next medical
examination..
SOUTH AFRICA
* Acclaimed novelist David Lambkin whose first novel and bestseller "Plain of Darkness" was optioned by now defunct PrimediaPictures, and will now be snapped up by one of the several interested Hollywood Independants, will see his second book "The Hanging Tree" get the adaptation treatment as option deals are currently in negotiation. "The Hanging Tree" is about a female paleontologist who is sent to Kenya on an archealogical dig. During this trip she discovers and starts researching a dark love triangle that harks back a century, and which eerily starts to mirror the forbidden relationship she embarks on in the present. It's been described as "The Mission" meets "The English Patient". (That's pretty high company, now let's get a director along the lines of Joffe to direct this sucker - DR. SOTHA).
* A deal is close to being finalized for the film rights to "The Bang-Bang Club", which is just about to be released by Random House SA. This is the story of four South African photojournalists covering the "bang bang" after Mandela's release. Two are now dead - one shot covering a gun battle with peacekeepers the other a suicide. (Thanks to Jonathan Diamond).
* A sequel to the South African produced BORN FREE is on the fast track called "Walking With Lions". Richard Harris (Gladiator) will play Adamson, in which the story revolves around. Harris is a big supporter of African film, having already shot many a film on these shores. Thanks to "ERO".
* South African scribe Jack Van Niftrik has "Where Rumour Never Reaches" in the pipeline - a dark thriller where two doctors stumble across one of the most diabolical weapons of the apartheid machine - a biological warfare programme targeted at the black population. Twenty years later at the hearing of the Truth Commission this fiction is revealed to be true. (Sounds malevolently mischievous - DR. SOTHA)
* Franco Human is set to direct "Camago's People" which tells the bittersweet story of a young boy's harsh rites of passage inside a tightly knit, regimented community. Johnny Masilela wrote.
* "The Cry of Reason" directed by Robert Bilheimer and Ron Mix, released theatrically some 10 years ago was one of the few documentaries nominated for an Oscar and made in South Africa. And so it deserves a mention. This documentary traces the life of the Reverend C.F. Beyers Naude and his transformation from pillar of the Afrikaner establishment to outcast supporter of the freedom movement. Powerful and haunting it paints a vivid portrait of a South Africa unhinged and chaotic at its most vulnerable moment. Search and enjoy.
* Staying on the subject of genre defining films in this country, I must point you in the direction of a film Directed by Thomas Mogotlane and Oliver Schmitz. In English, Zulu, Sotho and Afrikaans with English subtitles. "Mapantsula" is the first anti-apartheid feature film by, for and about black South Africans. Filmed in Soweto and scored to the urban beat of "Township Jive," it tells of a petty hoodlum, Panic (played by Thomas Mogotlane), caught up in the events of the student riots in Soweto and his transformation from irresponsible loner to someone compelled to take a stand. Winner of seven South African Film Awards but originally banned upon its release.
NORTH AFRICA
* Out of Africa comes KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS based on a West African folk tale, it's an elegantly simple animated film about a tiny boy having his first bath in a bowl, who tries to save his village from the evil sorceress Karaba. Its charming and engaging, says film critic Joanna Rix on the eve of its release on several African shores. It has also been sold in several European markets. (Be on the lookout EuroAICN - DR. SOTHA). Thanks to "ERO".
* Congonese filmmaker Mput'o Rwadla will shoot "Moompa" about a dysfunctional family living on the outskirts of civilization in middle Africa. The tribe is comprised of 100 men and women. Most of the men have 3 wives, but when one wife cheats on another husband the tribe is thrown head deep into chaos and dissarray. Rwadla says he will shoot it as a parody as a way of ridiculing the more tone deaf documentaries that have riddled the subject over the decades. He has also made strong comparisons with Emir Kusturika's "Underground" which he sights as a major inspiration for the film, which he wrote.
* "Lumumba: la mort du prophete" (Lumumba: Death of a Prophet) I give you "Rigobert Song" for another great contribution to the column in reviewing this next film: "Hi readers, for once DR. SOTHA has decided to be less dictatorlike with his column and has allowed me an introduction. I consider myself an expert when it comes to African Film, having taught it for close to 12 years I feel I have a unique grasp on its intricacies, strengths, weaknesses etc. I'd like to hear from anyone who shares this passion for African Film, or who is maybe just discovering it for the first time, there's just so much out there if you look in the right places. Please contact me at Rigobertsong@hotmail.com and we can talk Africanfilm. By the way when I say dictatorlike I mean it in a good way Doctor, I think you are doing the industry a fine favour, but enough kissing arse (ahh forget the review - DR. SOTHA) and onto the review. "Lumumba: la mort du Prophte offers a unique opportunity to reconsider the life and legacy of one of the legendary figures of modern African history. Like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba is remembered less for his lasting achievements than as an enduring symbol of the struggle for self-determination. This deeply personal reflection by acclaimed fimmaker Raoul Peck on the events of Lumumba's brief twelve month rise and fall is a moving memorial to a man described as a giant, a prophet, a devil, "a mystic of freedom," and "the Elvis Presley of African politics."
If Lumumba is a film about remembering, it is even more a film about forgetting. It is not so much a conventional biography as a study of how Lumumba's legacy has been manipulated by politicians, the media and time itself. Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck meditates on his own memories as the privileged son of an agricultural expert working for the regime which displaced Lumumba. He examines home movies, photographs, old newsreels and contemporary interviews with Belgian journalists and Lumumba's own daughter to try to piece together the tragic events and betrayals of 1960. A film essay in the tradition of Night and Fog or The Sorrow and the Pity, Lumumba explores how any image inevitably represses the multiple stories surrounding it, how the past as preserved by the media is always in a sense the hostage of history's winners. Therefore present-day Europe figures as prominently in Lumumba as the Congo in 1960, because Europe was the unseen hand behind the camera and the events leading to Lumumba's assassination. Peck presents an unfamiliar Europe seen through the eyes of a visitor from the Third World - cold, affluent, a guilty present trying to forget its past. Yet, as this film testifies, Lumumba's prophecy will not be silenced until Africa achieves its second independence where the promises of the first can be fulfilled."
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* Legendary comedian Richard Pryor made a rare public appearance at the recent premiere of the film "The Original Kings of Comedy'" to accept a lifetime achievement award from MTV, the film's co-producer. The film's director Spike Lee and the picture's four stars (Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Bernie Mac and Cedric The Entertainer) presented Pryor with an MTV astronaut statuette dubbing him "The Original King of Comedy'" during the Hollywood event. In the past few years, Pryor has battled multiple sclerosis, which limits his ability to make public appearances. "The Original Kings of Comedy," distributed Paramount, his theaters Friday, August 18. Meanwhile, on Oct. 17, Rhino Records will release a nine-CD box set of the comedian's groundbreaking standup material from the '70s, '80s and '90s called "Richard Pryor: Sand It's Deep Too! The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings." The collection will contain a booklet with new quotes and testimonials from stars like Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Whoopi Goldberg. The liner notes are penned by novelist Walter Mosley. More at Netnoir.com (This is fantastic news for anyone without the pleasures of laughing gas - DR. SOTHA)
* Sisqo, who's wowed mainstream and urban audiences alike with the "Thong Song" off his current multi-platinum CD "Unleash the Dragon,'' will be pitched to networks by Big Ticket in hopes of landing a pilot deal for fall 2001. Sisqo is no stranger to the small screen. He's a Pepsi and McDonald's pitchman and MTV got him to host the summer dance series "Sisqo's Showdown.'' Sisqo will also co-star in the upcoming Miramax picture "Getting Over Allison.'' And speaking of Miramax, "Scary Movie" has become the biggest film in Miramax Films' history. In just 31 days the Keenen Ivory Wayans directed movie raked in $140.1 million, surpassing the studio's Oscar-winning 1998 picture ''Good Will Hunting,'' which ended up with $138 million (You can dig that in any language - DR. SOTHA)
* Columbia Pictures has picked up WHITEY by Buddy Johnson (SCARY MOVIE co-writer) about a black man who is on the run for a crime he didn't commit. He heads to the South and disguises himself as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. (Thanks Elston Gunn - DR. SOTHA)
* Seems like Wesley Snipes felt he had to have his say concerning John Singleton's "Shaft". Snipes insists he was offered the part first before Samuel L Jackson took the reigns, but turned it down because he thought it was a bad idea from the start trying to remake a classic. He says he has nothing against Jackson, but Richard Rowntree would always be "Shaft" no matter how many times they remade it, and no matter how successful the new films would be. ( Doesn't this taste a tad bitter - your thoughts in talkback - DR. SOTHA)
* One of Motowns last hope acts, Boyz II Men are set to guest star on each of UPN's Monday night comedies -- "Moesha," "The Parkers," "The Hughleys" and "Girlfriends" -- airing Monday, September 25. On each of the shows the group will play themselves (this might sound easy, but not if you're Boyz II Men - DR. SOTHA). The news comes on the heals of the group's new ballad on the charts "Pass You By" (hint, hint UPN).
AFRICAN COAXIAL
* THESE GUMBOOTS ARE GOING TO STOMP ALL OVER BRITAIN was the headline in the Sunday Times, referring to a new play that's hitting London. Township dance will raise the dust at this year's prestigious British Royal Variety Show. The new stage hit AFRICAN FOOTPRINT was snapped up this week for the top British TV variety special, staged in London and broadcast to a global viewership in December. The sell-out musical is unknown outside Johannesburg, where it opened in May with a cast of 20 recruited from Sowetan dance companies and Pretoria Technikon's drama course. But its appearance on CNN's INSIDE AFRICA in June alerted producers worldwide to a hot prospect for 2001.
And now it's been picked ahead of West End successes for the annual roal charity concert. Kevin Bishop, the BBC's top variety producer, arrived in Jhb last weekend to see AFRICAN FOOTPRINT at Gold Reef City's Globe Theatre. "To me, AFRICAN FOOTPRINT is just as original and exciting, and it's a top-class musical as professional as anything else I've seen in London this year". The songs and storyline follow this country's emergence from apartheid and war to become a leading force in African society, sport and showbiz. Prince "I can't crack a smile" Charles is in the royal box for this year's show to be staged on December 6 at the 2000 seat Dominion Theatre. "Producers are arriving here every week to look at the show," Loring said. "I've already had offers from Europe, the US and the Far East and here at home we're already booked through into the summer season. (You'd be hard pressed to get a reaction out of Prince Charles, even if you had a witchdoctor give him a lapdance - DR. SOTHA)
Question and Answer time. It appears I have no avid stockbrokers reading the column, because nobody got the answer right to last weeks question. The exchange rate is on average 7 Rand to 1 American Dollar. Too frequently the great prize to the winner (in this case an absolutely free all inclusive rectal exam) goes abegging. Ahh hell I'll just carry it over as next weeks prize. Now that I got you all riled up.this weeks question: "How many readers (approximate figures please) do you think actually give a shit about the question and answer section?"
