Well, Father Geek here welcoming our good doctor back from his holiday safari into the tangled bush with his company of nurse/porters. I understand he returns with several trunks full of exotic and rare herbs as well as a kilo or two of finely ground white rino horn. With all these fresh supplies he is sure to be able to cure just about any cinema fan's anxiety about the upcoming year's films. So Africa-AICN readers don't be shy... step into the waiting room... tell the fetching nurses your symptoms... and prepare to get a double dose of cine-medicine from Dr. SOTHA...
Welcome back, I'm healthy thank you for asking. DR.SOTHA here for another
lethal dosage of Africa-AICN. This week we had a fellow sneak into the
psychiatric wards. A Beatnik who kept screaming 'We are not rats, we are
tsar' to Marvin Gaye's thumping 'sex in the afternoon'. A surreal experience
all round, we put him on ventilation and then transferred him to ICU. Alan
Rudolph is reportedly after the film rights. Watch this space.
E-mail me with any obscure rantings and I'll be sure to ease your pain at
My Experimental Clinic.
Nurse: DR.SOTHA is that a syringe in your pocket, or are you just happy to
see me? DR.SOTHA: Both.
SOUTH AFRICA
E-mail me with any obscure rantings and I'll be sure to ease your pain at
My Experimental Clinic.
Nurse: DR.SOTHA is that a syringe in your pocket, or are you just happy to
see me? DR.SOTHA: Both.
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA
* Curtain will rise on two solo plays at Sundance. Two solo stage plays, Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife" and Aviva Jane Carlin's "Jodie's Body," have been selected to be showcased at the Sundance Film Festival this month in Park City, Utah. The plays are presented through the fest's Sundance Theatre Program. "Wife," which was developed at the Sundance Theatre Playwrights Retreat and the Sundance Theatre Lab, centers on the life of Charlotte Van Mahlsdorf, an East German transvestite who escaped a World War II internment camp by successfully passing as a woman. Later in life, Van Mahlsdorf achieved celebrity for running an authentic Weimar-era cabaret. She was awarded a cultural-preservation medal after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Carlin stars in "Body," during which she poses nude in front of an imaginary drawing class while recalling her SOUTH AFRICAN childhood under apartheid.
* After an 18-year search, marine explorer Emlyn Brown discovered the 90-year shipwreck of the passenger liner SS Waratah off the Transkei coast. This week he begins filming the wreck with the use of a manned submersible from Delta Oceanographics in California, United States. It has been reported that about R900 000 was spent on the 18-year search for the SS Waratah. Brown has now been forced to undertake the filming of the shipwreck documentary at his own expense as no local television channel has shown any interest in commissioning the programme. Brown has, however, received some support from the United States for the project. It is believed that the support vessel which has a massive crane and submersible is costing R1-million (About 750k.) Brown, who heads the National Underwater and Marine Agency in South Africa, will explore in the documentary why the ship sank after leaving Durban on 26 July, 1902. At the time the sinking of the ship was greeted with shock by the world. The Titanic sank three years later. (Brown meet Mr. Cameron - DR.SOTHA)
* Robert Revel is set to adapt his novel "A WHOLE IN ONE" which centers around a woman who seduces men in the Orange Free State, steals their money and brutally murders them in abstract masochistic ways. She meets her match when crossing paths with her long lost twin sister, who has also taken the same path of revenge and self-redemption. Driven Films have put it on the fast track, and look set to start shooting in April in the Orange Free State.
* Writer/director/actor Michel Amble is working on casting the adapted stage play 'LIFT OFF' about a black couple and white couple getting stuck for twenty-four-hours in a department store elevator, culminating in their confrontation of race issues, inter racial relations and post Apartheid South Africa. There's a twist at the end that sees the dynamic of the four change before they escape. Amble is looking to cast Embeth Davidtz (Bicentennial Man) and Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy) in the roles of the white couple.
* South African media is set to benefit substantially from the subsidy and funding scheme which has been proposed by the Media Development and Diversity Agency in its recently released position paper. The agency proposes far-reaching restructuring of the media sector in general, including new media and print. The project is intended to address historical imbalances in patterns of ownership and control in the South African media industry. R500-million (about $90m) will be made available over a five-year period, 60% of which will be sourced from government, the media industry and donors. Each of the three entities will be expected to contribute R20-million each. It is envisaged that funds could be raised through levies on advertising, both in electronic and print media, a lower levy for print advertising. Film and Arts is expected to be aligned R100 - million for development and production (Why does this sound bullshit to me - oh that's right because we never get to see this money pumped into actual feature films - DR.SOTHA)
NORTH AFRICA
* Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, along comes Budanda Klikla's "UMTHANDA" (Teeth) about a demented piranha that somehow makes it halfway across the world (?) from South America to the West Coast of Africa and terrorizes the small town of Sao Tome. Local authorities pull out all the stops to halt this little terrier from drawing gallons of blood from the natives. Klikla (who I suspect is a distant relative of Spielberg's or perhaps just a fan - DR.SOTHA) intends to use a big special effects team to shoot the fish's movements and accelerations. Klikla made the astute observation that 'piranha's are fish without motives, they kill because they've nothing better to do'. (Admit this sounds like a great B movie, imagine how bad it could be - DR.SOTHA)
* Click out of your other porn site browsers, it's RIGOBERT SONG.
Hello, film enthusiasts, I have a wonderful concoction from Cameroon that I'd like to present to you. Read on.
SANGO MALO (The Village Teacher) Director: Bassek ba Kobhio - Cameroon
Sango Malo offers American viewers an intimate and engaging portrait of the complex social dynamic underlying economic and political change in a typical African village. It argues passionately that a populist education must be a key component of any democratic, human-centered development paradigm for Africa. Bassek ba Kobhio explains why his first feature focuses on education: "It is education which can form a new people...It is hard to think about changing African society without envisioning an appropriate form of education."
Sango Malo contrasts two views of education. The traditional headmaster represents a rigid, "Eurocentric" curriculum designed to produce docile colonial administrators. Malo, the radical young teacher, emphasises the practical skills needed to build a self-reliant rural community. The film illustrates Brazilian educator Paolo Freire's celebrated distinction between an education which the ruling class uses to influence its values in students' minds and one which empowers students to shape their own destiny.
Malo's innovative ideas soon spread to the rest of the village. With his help, the peasants establish a cooperative store and a cocoa marketing cooperative which undercut the power of the village chief, store owner and priest. When Malo alienates the villagers by demanding too rapid change, his enemies call in the army which arrests and imprisons him. But Malo has taught his lessons so well the villagers can carry on his reforms without him. In the last, open-ended shot, the camera discretely pulls back as the peasants celebrate a future they themselves will make. The narrative thrust, the responsibility for development, no longer lies with the village elite, nor the progressive schoolmaster, nor even the socially-engaged filmmaker, but has passed to the peasants themselves and to the African audiences viewing the film. It's a simple parable woven around universal ideals, and is easily digested in any country. So don't wait for me to suggest it, find it for yourselves. I'll leave you with a quote about the film from Variety: "Offers a valuable look at the harsh realities of village life in a little-seen land. The director shines with a lively script and complex characters."
E-mail me at Rigobertsong@hotmail.com and lets talk African film.
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* .And the ALI casting bandwagon continues.Comedian Paul Rodriguez is set to star as outspoken fight physician Dr. Ferdie Pacheco in Columbia Pictures' big-budget biopic "Ali" for director Michael Mann and producer Jon Peters. The project is scheduled to begin shooting Thursday. "Ali" stars Will Smith in the title role of the former heavyweight champion of the world and also includes Jamie Foxx as Drew "Bundini" Brown, Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X, Mykelti Williamson as boxing promoter Don King and Ron Silver as trainer Angelo Dundee.
* Damon Wayans is in negotiations to star opposite Lisa Kudrow in Paramount Pictures' comedy "Marci X" for director Richard Benjamin and producer Scott Rudin. Production is scheduled to begin in March. Written by Paul Rudnick ("In & Out"), the film is about a spoiled Jewish princess (Kudrow) whose record label mogul father has a stress-induced heart attack because of a controversy surrounding a song put out by one of his labels' star rappers (Wayans). Taking matters into her own hands and to rescue her late father's plummeting stock, his daughter takes over the hard-core hip-hip label and attempts to reign in the rapper. Over time, the unlikely pair fall in love, learn important lessons about race relations and smooth things over with the public.
* Walter Latham, who created and produced Paramount Pictures/MTV Films' "The Original Kings of Comedy," has set up three new feature film projects at the studio. The projects fall under Latham's newly signed three-year first-look deal with the studio for his Latham Entertainment. They are: "Pimp Pasty," a comedy being written by Bradley Allenstein ("Juwanna Mann") and Robert Henny. The story chronicles the rise, fall and eventual redemption of a manipulated and utterly talentless white rapper who starts to believe that he is black; an untitled romantic comedy to star Mo'Nique (UPN's "The Parkers"), who last year worked with Latham on "The Queens of Comedy" tour; and "The Untitled David Bottrell Project," about three coeds who kidnap a misogynistic rap star with the hopes of re-educating him about the appropriate way to treat women. The plan hits a major snag when each begins to fall for him.
* At the risk of incurring the wrath of purists everywhere, I decided to tally up the votes of top African American actors' pulling power in the top 20.
Here's the big earners from this past year,$100 Million+ with Black Stars
2. Mission: Impossible 2 $215,409,889 (Thandie Newton/Ving Rhames)
3. Gladiator (Djimon Hounsou) $186,610,052
6. X-Men (Halle Berry - yeah like she had anything to do with it - DR.SOTHA) $157,299,717
7. Scary Movie $156,997,084 (Stars Marlon/Shawn Wayans; directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans)
11. Nutty Professor II: The Klumps $123,307,945 (Eddie Murphy/Janet Jackson)
13. Big Momma's House (Martin Lawrence/Nia Long) $117,559,438
15. Remember the Titans $113,746,040 (Denzel Washington)
