Father Geek here with another Friday's worth of Africa-AICN from the South African offices of Dr. SOTHA, Rigobert Song and their two dozen specialist nurses. As usual the Doc's got the cure for Africaicus Filmphobia, that epidemic that attacks the ability to see, or hear clearly motion pictures made in, about, or starring people from the continent of Africa. It appears to be especially widespread in North America and our good doctor is determined to wipe it out in our lifetime. So here he is with this weeks dose of medicine...
Got a fetish for flesh, well jump on the Africa-AICN medical bandwagon with
me, DR.SOTHA your host for another Friday of news, reflections and filmic
hemorrhaging.
Please send all your biological conspiracies to Africaaicn@hotmail.com and
I'll try and wipe out the amoeba's responsible.
Nurse, don't get up.
SOUTH AFRICA
Please send all your biological conspiracies to Africaaicn@hotmail.com and
I'll try and wipe out the amoeba's responsible.
Nurse, don't get up.
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA
* Caught this interview that our Charlize gave not too long ago - interesting stuff, here's some selected excerpts. Robert Redford who directed her in "The Legend of Bagger Vance" says "She has all the elements, I think, of what creates a lasting actress, she's ambitious, she's got looks, she's talented, intelligent, fiercely tough on herself without letting the insecurity dominate. And she has courage; that's an additional thing.She's easily stereotyped as the very attractive model/dancer, but there was such emotional range in what I saw of her work that I took the bet, and I'm extremely pleased with what she did. This was a hard role, and she had the determination to pull it off."
"Charlize Theron knows about determination. She grew up on a farm in Benoni, a small town outside Johannesburg, where she planned on escaping the daily grind of cow milking and muckraking by becoming a dancer. Although she continues to have a wonderfully close relationship with her mother, Gerda, her father was a troubled, abusive alcoholic. When Charlize was fifteen, he attacked her mother in a drunken rage, who, in return, shot and killed him. Her act was ruled self-defense and Theron's mother was never charged. From then on, Theron had to help her mother run the family business, and she saw how much her father had hidden about the firm's financial difficulties.
"You think everything is great, and you realize you have nothing. There are all these secrets," she says. "The bank was after her and said, 'You have to sell; you have too much debt.' She proved everyone wrong." Although Charlize considered it a joke at first, her mother entered her in a modelling competition at sixteen. Theron won in Johannesburg, then won the International New Model Today competition in Italy. "I didn't take it so seriously that if rejection came my way I couldn't handle it," she recalls. "It's a very, very harsh industry, and it wasn't so important to me if someone said, 'You're too fat; you won't get that job.' Charlize bought a one-way ticket to Hollywood in 1994 and was "discovered" when a Los Angeles bank clerk refused to cash her check and she threw "a little tantrum," as she puts it. This tantrum was witnessed by talent manager, John Crosby, who also represents Rene Russo and John Hurt. He called this screaming, arm-waving tantrum- thrower a "vision" and said to her: "I don't know what you do, but if you're interested in acting, here's my card."
With no money or job, she set out to shed her South African accent by watching hours of television and singing along to American songs on the radio. Soon after, she acquired her first acting job, 'Two Days in the Valley,' which was followed by the Tom Hanks-directed 'That Thing You Do'. "She's got it!" said Hanks at the time. "That girl is going to be somebody." Today a somebody at last, Charlize shares her Hollywood Hills house with her boyfriend of a few years, rocker Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind.
Q: How hard has it been for you as a foreigner in Hollywood?
THERON: I love the fact that I'm a foreigner. I love that I am perceived as different. I'm sure it's helped with my career. With each passing year, though, I feel more and more at home in America. (Just remember you're South African first! - DR. SOTHA)
Q: How much more famous would you like to be?
THERON: The greater your celebrity, the greater the intrusions into your privacy. There are things people shouldn't be required to deal with publicly just because they are celebrities. I went to France to promote The Devil's Advocate with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. It was a madhouse. I'd never seen anything like it. Cars would block our vehicles off and make us walk, so the paparazzi could get photos. Al's car got lost one day trying to get away. He told me if he had known what his life would be like today, he'd never have become an actor. I'm certainly not at that point yet and I hope it never happens.
Q: You were raised on a farm near a tiny village outside of Johannesburg. What was your childhood like?
THERON: It was the kind of village where kids rode donkeys to school (Can I just say that this is simply not true - we use goats now - DR. SOTHA). My best friend was my pet goat named Bok. I was the kind of child who had incredible dreams. I'd want to be a guitar player and then dancer and always my mother would try to accommodate those dreams.
Q: How do you feel about being from South Africa?
THERON: My native language is Afrikaans. I try to speak English in a neutral way, but not so people will think I'm American. I've always been proud of being South African. Like any South African, I have big dreams and big hopes for the country's future.
Q: Last year you started a controversy in your homeland by appearing in a TV commercial calling attention to the country's shockingly high rape statistics.
THERON: South Africa is the rape capital of the world and there is untold violence toward women and children. The government refuses to acknowledge the problem, so it is up to celebrities to speak out. But the first time someone stands up and says something about rape in South Africa, 28 men complained, and the ad got pulled. It was very strange.
Q: You've appeared nude in several films already. How do you feel about nudity in films?
THERON: Nudity in movies, if used properly, is extremely powerful (You don't say - DR. SOTHA). I think of myself as a very sexual creature. I didn't grow up with a mother who told me what I had under my clothes was bad or evil. Perhaps that's why I'm less intimidated by nudity than many people.
Q: You are considered to be extremely beautiful. How do you see yourself?
THERON: I never thought of myself as this exquisite thing. Like any human being I see the flaws in myself - crooked teeth, pigmentation, a round face - if I gain weight it goes right there. But I learned early on, the less you try the more your better qualities will come through.
Q: What are your best recollections as a model?
THERON: I only ever modelled as a means to an end. I hated every minute of it. My first modelling job got me from South Africa to Milan and it eventually got me to America. It was great to have all that independence and I loved learning about designer clothes like Armani, but coming from dance, where the discipline was about needing to dance eight hours a day, suddenly I was thrown into this career where the discipline was about what I eat. That whole mentality of 'Lose five pounds and you'll be a superstar' was not something I ever wanted to strive for.
Q: Are you aware that there are rumor-mongers in Hollywood who say that you are gay?
THERON: I know a lot of people have said that they think I'm a lesbian (Not that that's a bad thing everybody - DR. SOTHA). I think people make that connection when I make a comment about another woman, 'What an amazing ass,' or 'Look at those legs.' I do really appreciate a beautiful face. I can appreciate it, but it's not a turn on to me. I don't know; maybe I should be turned on. But I've always loved men.
Q: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
THERON: The greatest advice I've ever got in my life was to never do what people expect you to do. I've always been told 'No,' and that just flicks a fire in me and makes me want to burn everything down. It's good when people tell you no, I guess.
Q: You seem remarkably strong and centered. Is there anything that could unnerve you?
THERON: The way I was raised, that I'm not an American, that I had every single odd against me - not speaking the language and having to transform myself into an American, because that's where the core of the industry really is - the fact that I was a model-turned-actress, that I'm beautiful and blonde and dumb and could never be taken seriously. Having gone through all of that in the last five years of my life, nothing scares me anymore (What about the prospect of again acting opposite Keanu? - DR. SOTHA).
This Article is courtesy of killerfeatures.com ...
* THE GREAT DANCE: A HUNTER'S STORY is the second most successful documentary feature ever to be released on the South African cinema circuit, according to distributor SterKinekor. This local production was released at Cinema Nouveau Rosebank (Johannesburg) in October this year. The only other documentary feature which opened bigger on the local cinema circuit was the foreign-language film, Buena Vista Social Club which was released with 2 prints in South Africa. The Great Dance was released with only 1 print. Its gross was reached in less than 6 weeks and improved on the life-time grosses being set by other documentaries, such as "Mobuto: King Of Zaire", Oscar-winner "The Last Days", "Mandelaand" and "Kurt & Courtney". Earlier this year when The Great Dance walked off with 3 prestigious Panda Awards and 2 nominations from the WildScreen 2000 Awards Ceremony (the "Oscars" of Natural History filmmaking). It won the WWF Golden Panda Award for "Best Film" against steep competition, including the BBC/Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" and Sir David Attenborough's Life of Birds.The Great Dance, voiced by Sello Maake Ka-Ncube from TV's "Generations", is the first film ever to be fully supported by WIMSA (Working Group of Indigenous Minorities In Southern Africa). It deals with the unique relationship between the San people of the Kalahari and their environment, seen through the experience of hunting and tracking. Specially adapted mini-cam technology and never- before-seen footage of the death defying 'chasing hunt' makes the film unique and remarkable. It was directed and photographed by brothers Craig and Damon Foster of Cape Town, executive produced by James Hersov and produced by Ellen Windemuth, with a script by Jeremy Evans, music by Barry Donnelly and sound recording / additional photography by Teo Bielefeld. "The Great Dance" is an Aardvark/Earthrise/Liquid Pictures/Off the Fence production co-produced with KirchMedia, e.tv and Primedia Pictures.
* Sad though this is Coyote Ugly remains at the top of the South African box office in its fourth week of release, having amassed R5 959 250 to date. It is followed by the "new" release The Replacements, which is ahead of The Cell, The Kid and What Lies Beneath. (Woe is the state of the South African Box Office - DR. SOTHA)
NORTH AFRICA
* Features and documentaries coming from Algeria, Australia, Chad, Congo, the USA and Zimbabwe amongst others will be premiered at the 8th annual Contemporary African Diaspora Film Festival which opens in Brooklyn, New York on Friday, 24 November. The festival will open with the U.S. premiere of OTOMO, directed by German Frieder Schlaich, a 2000 Rotterdam competition entry and winner of the 2000 Vancouver Film Festival's Diversity in Spirit Award. Otomo is part of a retrospective of actor Isaach de Bankole, who also appears in several festival selections, including Ghost Dog (Jim Jarmusch), The Keeper (Joe Brewster), and the U.S. premiere of Senegalese filmmaker Cheick Oumar Sissoko's latest film BATTU, a satire co-starring Danny Glover. The "godfather of modern black cinema," and creator of the 1971 hit "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song", Melvin Van Peebles will also premiere his new film A BELLYFUL (Un Conte due Ventre Plein) at the festival. The DV-shot French-language fable follows the exploits of a middle age white couple who adopt a young black orphan girl for dubious reasons. The festival also includes special programmes and panels celebrating Brazilian and Egyptian cinema, black images in Canadian cinema, the Afro-Latino experience and the work of black women directors.
* Ladies and Gentleman (drum roll) (beat) (pause) Rigobert Song
Hello friends, foes, and inbetweeners, I have a wonderfully absorbing documentary for everyone today. A prize winner at this years Sundance Film Festival "Long Night's Journey Into Day" For over forty years, South Africa was governed by the most notorious form of racial domination since Nazi Germany. When it finally collapsed, those who had enforced apartheid's rule wanted amnesty for their crimes. Their victims wanted justice. As a compromise, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed. As it investigated the crimes of apartheid, the Commission brought together victims and perpetrators to relive South Africa's brutal history. By revealing the past instead of burying it, the TRC hoped to pave the way to a peaceful future, hoped.
Long Night's Journey Into Day, winner of the Grand Prize for Best Documentary at the 2000 Sundance Festival, follows several TRC cases over a two-year period. The stories in the film underscore the universal themes of conflict, forgiveness, and renewal. A white special forces officer, struggles to reach peace with the embittered wife of a black activist he killed 14 years before. A group of mothers, after enduring years of misinformation and denials by the authorities, learn the truth about how their sons were set up, betrayed and killed in a vicious police conspiracy. A liberation movement combatant who blew up a bar frequented by the security police expresses his remorse about the civilians killed, but the sister of a victim remains doubtful. A young black activist comes to recognize the anguish he caused by killing a white American student during a mob riot, while her parents see past their pain to embrace a new multi-racial South Africa.
As it emerges from its tragedy, South Africa is showing the rest of the world that even the most bitter of conflicts can be addressed through honesty and communication. Long Night's Journey Into Day provides the definitive record of one of the most ambitious and innovative attempts at social reconciliation without precedent in human history. I realize this is a short review, but I can't bring myself to say much else, except for this is one of the most provocatively powerful documentary's I have ever seen. Pure, raw and truthful, heaven help the weak. E-mail me at rigobertsong and lets talk African Film.
* Thank AFRICA for Glenn Close. Africa saved actress Glenn Close from growing up as a member of a cult. Her parents were devotees of conservative salvationist organization Moral Re-Armament when she was a child - but she's grateful her doctor father found his calling while working in The Congo. Close, who spent time with her parents when she wasn't at boarding schools in Switzerland and Connecticut remembers the change she saw in her parents. She says, "My parents were very idealistic and I think they were susceptible at a certain in their lives to the allure of a group like that. The appeal as with any cult, was that, after the war, many young people felt traumatised. Looking back as an adult, I'm so proud of my parents, so in awe of them - they're great humanists, and they broke away. The catalyst was going to Africa, where my father saw what he was meant to do, which was to be a doctor and help people. He was the only surgeon in the Congo for four months during the mutiny. He stepped into his destiny there and he told the group to go jump in the lake." (Unfortunately Africa doesn't always save actresses from career doldrums ahem Kim Bassinger anyone? - DR. SOTHA)
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* Taken from the Hollywood Reporter.Since wrapping production on "Rollerball" for MGM, director John McTiernan is in discussions to helm action-thriller "The Extractors" for the studio. Samuel L. Jackson, who is fielding offers after "Unbreakable," is being eyed to star. The project, about a group of ex-cons who break prisoners out of jail for a price, is being targeted for a March start date. The project would fit nicely into Jackson's plans after Universal Pictures' "Truck 44" was pushed back. Preproduction on the Hyde Park Entertainment/Cheyenne Enterprises project could start next month. "It's way too early and nothing may happen at all," said an MGM spokesperson. "Extractors" writers Kevin Fox and James DeMonaco also wrote the Jackson starrer "The Negotiator," which Hyde Park's David Hoberman produced.
* Jim Caviezel is set to star opposite Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman in New Regency/20th Century Fox's thriller "High Crimes." The project begins shooting this week in San Francisco and Los Angeles with Carl Franklin at the helm. Based on the novel of the same name by Joseph Finder, "Crimes" is the story of a high-powered criminal defense attorney (Judd) who must defend her husband (Caviezel) after he is arrested by a team of government agents and accused of a 12-year-old wartime atrocity he insists he didn't commit. She enlists the help of a former military attorney (Freeman) but then begins to doubt her husband's innocence. Amanda Peet is featured in the project as Judd's younger sister.
* Chris Rock is wrapping up the four-year run of his Emmy-winning HBO late-night talk show with Friday's season finale, HBO confirmed Tuesday. Chris Albrecht, HBO's president of original programming, said in a statement that Rock had a great run with "The Chris Rock Show," which earned four consecutive Emmy nominations for best variety or musical series since its premiere in 1997. Rock and his writing team won the Emmy last year for writing for a variety or musical series. Guests set for Friday's final installment include rapper-actor Ice-T and singer Nikka Costa. Although he is signing off as host of a regular HBO series, Rock is sure to maintain a high profile on the pay TV network. His most recent HBO comedy special, 1999's "Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker," also yielded an Emmy nomination this year.
* American star Michael Clarke Duncan has praised the make-up artist on his latest movie - even though he is forced to spend three and a half hours in the makeup chair. The larger-than-life actor has been so impressed with Planet of the Apes makeup man Rick Baker'S "phenomenal" job, he doesn't mind spending time being covered in latex. Baker, who also worked with Jim Carrey for five-hours-a-day while making How the Grinch Stole Christmas, has won five academy awards for his work. The beefy actor says, "He has us looking so real you will not believe this." Duncan is in awe of the style of the film's director Tim Burton, and can't believe he will be working with him on the five month shoot. He says, "You know it's going to be good because of Burton's involvement. I think Tim is going to add his own little special spin to it because Tim isn't a typical director. He's really crazy looking and he gets all animated and I think this is going to be a fun shoot." The movie itself features Duncan alongside Mark Wahlberg, although as Duncan points out, "he doesn't have to get any make- up!"
* A bit of light relief from Mr. Cosby--Comedian Bill Cosby has entered into the political arena -by making his opinions about the ongoing presidential saga known. Cosby, one of the world's highest paid entertainers, had television audiences in stitches with his latest gag concerning the gaff-prone elections. He says, "Thank God the media weren't there to report the birth of Christ. "I can just imagine what they would have written - Bethlehem, Dec 25, 00 A.D., baby born to Mary and Joseph - it's a girl!"
AFRICAN COAXIAL
* Filminafrica.com , the independent portal for the South African film and television industry, has just been selected Site of The Week on www.iafrica.com. In addition, the portal has recorded 100,000 hits thus far. Forty seven percent of all hits are international - the top country being the USA, followed by UK, France, Australia, The Netherlands, Canada and Germany.
