Father Geek here with our good Dr. SOTHA's 35th Africa-AICN Friday morning column for your weekend enjoyment. So sit back relax and let our Doctor relieve the workweek tension. He's got just what you need to lift your spirits naturally. Sure its experimental, but results are what you're after, right? SOTHA's the man, the one with the snake oil, herbal sure-cure for the weekend blues. Just put yourself in his and his nurse's hands... and remember, the brain itself feels NO pain at all...

DR.SOTHA here for Africa-AICN #35. I would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who was involved in the 'Bullfrog Think Tank Experiment' (a croak detonator sewn into a patient's voicebox to alert him of possible danger to his bowels), and even though it wasn't entirely successful, the man 'will' live - and the manslaughter charges will be dropped.

E-mail us your nagging biological findings to Africaaicn@hotmail.com (Note: unsolicited not accepted)

Nurse, manslaughter is a law term not kinky foreplay.

SOUTH AFRICA

* Granted this is old news, but its worth repeating anything our beautiful Theron is working on. Charlize Theron will star and Courtney Love is in final talks to join her in the action-thriller 24 HOURS for director Luis Mandoki and the Canton Co./Senator Entertainment AG. It's about a doctor and his wife who take matters in their own hands when their daughter is kidnapped. Production is expected to begin in March. Mandolin Entertainment and Propaganda Pictures are also producing the pic written by Greg Iles.

* David Max Brown's 52-minute documentary "The Secret Safari" (formerly titled "Guns Under Their Bums") tells the story of one of the most successful and audacious military operations in the armed fight against apartheid in South Africa. Between 1986 and 1993 a company created by the ANC, called Africa Hinterland, operated a business taking tourists on overland sightseeing trips, which crossed the border into South Africa in contravention of international sanctions. Unbeknown to the tourists, under the seats of this Bedford truck were secret compartments housing military arms and explosives destined for the frontline of the underground military struggle against the notorious apartheid system. Like any military operation the documentary is a character-driven journey of courage, cunning and suspense, with tightly shot reconstructions of events using the original participants. The Secret Safari premieres in South Africa on 11 February.

* Two new local sitcoms, "Madam & Eve" and "Scoop Schoombie" have recently been launched in South Africa. "Madam & Eve" is the eagerly awaited spin-off from the popular cartoon series of the same name. According to producer and creative director of all four sitcoms, Roberta Durrant, the challenge with Madam & Eve was "to create identifiable characters who are not caricatures like their cartoon strip counterparts". "Scoop Schoombie" follows the adventures of a group of journalists in a weekly newspaper. "I wanted to stage a sitcom in a newsroom as news covers everything that affects our lives as South Africans. The workplace is one area where South Africans of different backgrounds encounter and interact with each other," said Durrant.

* South African filmmaker Feizel Mamdoo has been invited by The House of World Cultures in Germany to open its "Film Festivals of the World" programme in Berlin this weekend with his latest documentary "Mainland to Island". Mamdoo is known for his acclaimed documentary film "What Happened to Mbuyisa?" The "Film Festivals of the World" programme runs concurrent with the Berlin International Film Festival and features a different international festival every year. This year's retrospective, its seventh, is of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), one of Africa's most dynamic and colourful festivals. Mamdoo's "Mainland to Island" is set in Zanzibar and is a treatise on issues of African representation in the context of the 2000 Festival of the Dhow Countries held under the auspices of ZIFF. Mamdoo says he "borrowed" from footage he shot at the festival for another forthcoming documentary, to construct the 20 minute Mainland to Island and "exorcise his feelings" about "a Western dominated world and film and television industry". In theme as much as setting, Mainland to Island serves the aims of the state supported House of World Cultures, which among others, is to promote a challenging dialogue between western and non-western cultures. The documentary is very much a filmmakers' film and canvasses such issues as the role of film. At the Sithengi market in Cape Town last year the documentary was considered to "give voice" to the feelings of black filmmakers when Haile Gerima, the well known Ethiopian filmmaker, chose an excerpt from it to open one of his indomitable seminars.

* Brand new (I hope this is sarcasm - DR.SOTHA) release "Men of Honor" has gone to the top of the South African box office, amassing (More sarcasm - DR.SOTHA) $400 000 in its first week. It is followed by "Meet The Parents", "The Exorcist", "Vertical Limit" and "Almost Famous". "Charlie's Angels" is still in the top ten and has notched up $2M in the seven weeks since its release. (Just call this blurb my parody section - DR.SOTHA)

NORTH AFRICA

* HELL SHOOT IN MOROCCO: Extreme weather conditions -- windstorms, sandstorms and flash floods -- faced by director Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth") during a three-month shoot in Morocco on the drama "Four Feathers" was the reason bond company Cinema Completions Inc. has been asked to take a more active role in the Paramount Pictures/Miramax Films' co-production, according to a joint statement released Sunday by Paramount, Miramax and CCI. CCI had been asked to step in to make sure that costs were kept in line and that Kapur more closely controlled the budget because of "costs unforeseen that specifically arose from shooting in Morocco". "Shekhar Kapur ... is doing a brilliant job, and I would work with him again in a second," Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein said in the statement. Principal photography on the film, which started Oct. 9, is "back on track" in London, "with such large-scale weather problems behind them," the statement read. The film stars Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson and is being produced by Stanley and Bob Jaffe.

* The long-awaited prequel to the definitive horror movie "The Exorcist" has finally got the go-ahead. Two critically-panned sequels already exist to William Friedkin's acclaimed supernatural tale and now, following the success of The Exorcist re-release with never-before-seen footage last year, it's believed there's a market for more vomit-filled horror flicks. The prequel, called "The Exorcist: Dominion", has been in the works for several years and has been penned by top novelist Caleb Carr who is also tipped to direct. The movie will focus on the first battle between Father Merrin - played by Max von Sydow in the original - and the demon Pazuzu, while the young priest is doing missionary work in AFRICA. A casting call has gone out in Los Angeles for a 10 to 14-year-old boy to take a leading role in the flick - presumably to play the unfortunate child who gets to 'host' the devil, just as Linda Blair did in the 1973 film.

* Only a mini-review from Rigobert Song this week, I'll let him explain it.

Good day readers, my apologies for such a short review this week, but I am lecturing in Swaziland, and had close to no time to really give this film my didactic overview, but here it is nonetheless:

SAARABA Directed by Amadou Seck - Senegal - In Wolof with English subtitles

In Saaraba, Amadou Seck continues the tradition of socially engaged cinema pioneered by his celebrated countrymen, Ousmane Sembene and Djibril Diop Mambety. Each character in this film is lost in a misguided search for saaraba, Wolof for Utopia. Each, like post-independence Africa itself, comes close to disaster and disillusionment. Saaraba presents an unsparing indictment of a corrupt older generation intoxicated with Western consumerism and of alienated urban youth addicted to drugs, sex and millenarian politics. Something that this years mainstream American films seem to share rather encouragingly. Seck's film strongly suggests that there are no easy answers for Africa, only the difficult task of developing societies based on mutual responsibility and a shared future. Impeccably structure, richly layered and solidly acted, it brings all its themes together without preaching its convictions. In short, go and see it, and if you don't like it, send me your ticket stub and I'll give you your money back. That's all for now, I'll be back next week for my more standard (lengthy) critique of the wonderful world of African film. E-mail me at rigobertsong@hotmail.com and we can talk about African film.

* I received this informative piece from Tunde Adegbola on the state of film in Nigeria. First a quick biography of the man. Tunde Adegbola works in Lagos as a consulting engineer. A keen musician, he had an active performance career as a keyboardist for close to 20 years between the 70's and the 8o's. He played in many bands including "The Light Bearers" and "Tunji Oyelana and the Benders". Tunde also wrote and performed the theme music of some of the most celebrated Yoruba feature movies including "Ti Oluwa ni Ile", "Ayo Ni Mo Fe", "Koseegbe" and "Oleku". He contributes in the print and electronic media on issues as wide ranging as Arts and Culture, Education and Information Technology.

Film Production in Nigeria

The production of feature movies started in Nigeria in 1971. This was when Wole Soyinka's Kongi's Harvest was produced by Francis Oladale, but movie making was soon to become one of the many victims of the economic downturn that characterised military incursion into governance in Nigeria. By 1989 however, developments in media technology coupled with the restlessness of the Nigerian psyche combined to rekindle a quiet revolution in motion picture production in Nigeria. Easy access to cheap consumer camcorders and consumer video cassette recorders that possess modest editing capabilities, and above all the wide availability of domestic video cassette recorders in many Nigerian homes have coalesced to set the background for a motion picture production industry based on home video viewing.

Even though many of the productions feature simplistic plots and tacky acting, what they lack in cinematic idioms and technical excellence they more than compensate for in vibrance. The productions may have rather short viewing lives but there is a high volume of video releases. As many as 10 new productions come out on a weekly basis. The major actors and actresses are beginning to attain celebrity status and the key producers and directors are fast becoming cult figures. Many employment opportunities for support roles in make-up, props, photography, distribution and trading in production and postproduction consumables have developed. So much money has passed through the industry in recent times that major financial institutions are beginning to recognise the significance of the motion picture production industry in their operations. At least two major Nigerian banks are now known to have set up structures designed to assess proposals for financing motion picture production projects.

Recent advances in production technology have now led to the development of affordable digital video formats and complementary editing systems built around the personal computer. These developments have combined to unleash the full benefits of digital technology on motion picture production. Consequently, it is now possible to project video images onto large cinema screens without distracting artefacts. By virtue of these advances, Nigerian motion picture productions, though originating in video are slowly but surely finding their way back onto large cinema screens. There has been a conscious reorganisation by the management of the National Theatre, Nigeria's premier entertainment venue and those of many other traditional cinema venues to accommodate the projection of motion picture images originating in video.

Despite these technological advances, many of the productions still have a long way to go in incorporating standard techniques of literary, performing, visual and other arts on which motion picture production relies. At their present level of development, many of Nigerian productions bear an interesting resemblance to Bollywood products with their stock plots and scenes in which one hears the sound of the punch before it lands.

Today, an industry is developing around motion picture production in Nigeria but many complementary efforts are still needed in order to sustain it. It is this need that has prompted efforts at screening some of the most impressive Nigerian productions to cinema enthusiasts and other mainstream art patrons in the UK. This is the background to the special screening of "Saworoide" and "Thunderbolt (Magun)" at the October Gallery in January 2000 and January 2001 respectively. Both movies, produced/directed by Tunde Kelani, one of Nigeria's most discerning cinematographers were very well received by the audience. Plans are underway to ensure that these screenings are regular and become more frequent. The special screenings will definitely provide more awareness for the Nigerian movie phenomenon and will surely contribute to the development of Nigeria's motion picture production industry.

Lagos is a growing Lollywood! It is hoped that the cultural, financial and political gains of Hollywood and Bollywood will also apply.

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* Will Smith was worried about playing Muhammad Ali, until the legendary boxer phoned the actor himself. Will was concerned he'd accepted the role of the cultural icon too early in his career to truly do justice to the part (Doh) - but his fears were eased when Ali, who now suffers from Parkinson's Disease, called to offer him encouragement. Smith reveals, "I felt that I shouldn't be doing this - it did seem too huge a task, but his family personally asked me. A lot of people were saying 'Don't go near it,' and I was about to turn it down. Then Muhammad called me himself. He said, 'You are almost pretty enough to play me.' He told me that his family were involved in the script and that he wanted it to be a tribute to his life. That conversation took a lot of pressure away from me. Even my wife was wondering whether this was the right thing to do, but once she knew Ali called that was it!"

* JoAnna Garcia and Samm Levine ("Freaks and Geeks"), Sam Huntington ("Detroit Rock City"), Mia Kirshner ("Mad City"), Chyler Leigh ("Safe Harbor"), Cody McMains ("Bring It On"), Jaime Pressly ("Jack & Jill") and newcomer Chris Evans are among the young actors signed to topline Columbia Pictures' comedy spoof "Teen Movie." The project, which marks the feature directorial debut of television producer-director Joel Gallen, is scheduled to begin shooting Feb. 21 in Los Angeles. Written by "Scary Movie" co-scribes Buddy Johnson and Phil Beauman, the spec script for "Teen" (aka "Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Roadtrips When I Can't Hardly Wait to Be Kissed") was acquired by the studio last summer for mid-against high six figures. The project is said to spoof such teen movies as "She's All That," "Bring It On," "Cruel Intentions" and "Save the Last Dance."

* Supermodel Naomi Campbell (Okay so she's Brit-African - DR.SOTHA) is a suing British newspaper for an article claiming that she is attended a drug clinic in London. Law firm Achilling & Lom is invoking the 1998 European Human Rights Act to claim damages against The Daily Mirror, saying the publication infringement of Campbell's privacy. The beauty lashed out at photographers yesterday after the article was printed, as they pounced outside the flat of her Italian millionaire boyfriend Flavio Briatore. If the 30-year-old wins her case it would prove a landmark legal decision - which could lead to other star's invoking the law to protect their private lives.

This is the end my friend, but more to come from Rotterdam in the next few days. Watch this space.

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT