Father Geek, and Dr. SOTHA along with Rigobert Song have returned with another installment of Ain't It Cool's hit Africa-AICN Friday column for all of you readers looking for the flickering projector's light to burst forth from the dark continent. Soooooooo, pull yourself up to the ol' terminal, top off that mug of java, and prepare yourseft for another painless injection of Afro-cine culture... SOTHA style. By the way Rigobert's back in true form this week with an excellant indepth analysis of the feature film "O Testamento Do Senhor Napumoceno" (Napumoceno's Will) by Director Francisco Manso, shot in Portuguese with English subtitles and slated for USA distribution.
DR.SOTHA here for your pleasure (or pain if you choose.) I'm working on
something in the pipeline of a project shooting in London currently. Let's
just say it involves football and 'This is Spinal Tap' type gags. Should
have coverage from the set in a few days, but for now, meet Nurse Pout - my
new assistant. She specializes in mouth-to-mouth, shocks (as in pad), and
raising patient's blood pressure.
If you'd like to get on her new CPR course e-mail us at Our South African Labs outside Benoni.
Nurse Pout, I know that's not all you do, but it's enough to entice them.
SOUTH AFRICA
If you'd like to get on her new CPR course e-mail us at Our South African Labs outside Benoni.
Nurse Pout, I know that's not all you do, but it's enough to entice them.
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA
* The South African National Film and Video Foundation has awarded R6.9-million in grants towards the development of film and video projects for the year 2000/2001. This is despite inheriting a deficit on the Interim Film Fund and facing start-up costs.
Although it was recommended that the Foundation delay granting funds for a whole year while it got off the ground, the Foundation managed, through prudent financial management, to award over R2-million more than it was expected to.
Out of the 95 grants, 63 went to males and 32 to females. The R6 920 030 went to:
Development -- Documentary 14 projects -- Feature 12 projects -- TV series 13 projects -Production Documentary 15 projects -- Short film 5 projects -- TV series 1 project -- Animation 1 project -- Postproduction 1 project -- Training and education 15 projects -- Bursaries 12 projects. As a further result of the inherited deficit, the bulk of the payments will only become available in the 2001 financial year starting 1 April 2001.
"Even if we received the entire proceeds of Lottery money, the funds would never be enough," says the chairperson of the Funding Committee Mike Dearham. "It is even more difficult when we have this very limited pool from which to satisfy the needs of so much talent. The amounts allocated to individual projects have to be limited to enable a fair spread across the applications received."
The applications for funding were received in sealed envelopes, and opened only by Dearham and his assistant. Advisory panels were made up of persons selected by the Council. The selections were made from submissions as a result of public advertisements. From the recommendations of the advisory panels, the Funding Committee trimmed a short list. Full council approved the final list. All the applications and documentation are kept in secure premises. The Foundation managed the unexpectedly high allocation through severe austerity measures. It is negotiating for further funding from various sources to make up for the deficit and to get the annual grants back on track. (Is this the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' for the South African Film Industry? - DR.SOTHA)
* Pay-TV station M-Net has refuted claims made in a Sunday newspaper as mischief making, inaccurate and a deliberate attempt to undermine M-Net s credibility in the local film and television industry. The allegations insinuate that M-Net s commitment to the local production industry has been waylaid in the race to secure the rights to produce "Big Brother". Further reference to previously commissioned, locally produced programmes (Massive, Big City, Shaleen, The Cosmo Show) being dumped in order to pull together the finance required to produce Big Brother are also unfounded. The decision to commission Big Brother was based on its record breaking success in a number of countries around the world. The genre of reality-TV is a global entertainment phenomenon and Big Brother stands to be one of the biggest local productions seen in South Africa. Over 120 jobs in the industry will be created through the making of the programme. This is equivalent to, if not more than, the number of jobs that could be created with three separate productions. Total spend in the industry is what counts. Both Big Brother and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire are international programme concepts that are classified as local productions, continued Marques.
* PRESS RELEASE: The Film and Publication Board (FPB) would like to make an urgent response to recent comments in the press regarding the controversial television series Yizo Yizo. The FPB was drawn into the "Yizo Yizo" debacle when asked this week to comment on the series during a Home Affairs parliamentary portfolio committee briefing. Board CEO, Dr Nana Makaula, emphasised that television broadcasters do not fall under the jurisdiction of the FPB. The Board was therefore not responsible in any way for the content, age restriction or broadcast of the programme. During the briefing, senior Board members were asked to express their feelings about certain aspects of the programme in light of the media attention which it has received in recent weeks. Press comments which followed stated that the Board "may well have banned Yizo Yizo" and emphasised the opinion of one Board member who might have rated the series as child pornography. Responding to the press report, Dr Makaula stated that "the Film and Publication Board wants to make it very clear that it does not rate or control television programming in any way whatsoever. Our examiners do not classify television series for public broadcast. It has never made any ruling on Yizo Yizo." Dr Makaula strongly emphasised that the Board has not labelled "Yizo Yizo" as child pornography and that it would be improper to do so. "Child pornography laws are intended to protect children against sexual exploitation and victimisation," she said. Dr Makaula reflected that in the past the Board has canvassed television broadcasters to adopt the same classification guidelines that are used by the FPB to determine age restrictions for feature films released in cinemas and on video. At present this is not the case, however, since each television broadcaster makes use of its own classification policies. Dr Makaula also responded to further insinuations in the press that the Film and Publication Board has adopted a censorial approach to its work. She maintained that the FPB does not practice censorship, but that child pornography, which is clearly defined by statutory law, is banned in South Africa. The FPB is responsible for rating films for age appropriateness in order to protect children from harmful and disturbing material. (and you guys in America thought you had it hard with Jack Valenti - DR.SOTHA)
NORTH AFRICA
* Time for Rigobert Song:
Hello Readers. I've got a bit indulgent with you today and gone for an epic African/Portuguese film with an equally epic review. Remember to e-mail me about African film at my North African Office.
"O Testamento Do Senhor Napumoceno" (Napumoceno's Will) Producer/Director: Francisco Manso -- Portugal/Cape Verde - 110 minutes In Portuguese with English subtitles
O Testamento do Senhor Napumoceno is an epic, or at least an epic farce, from one of the world's least known but most culturally complex societies - Cape Verde. This classic tale of the hollowness at the core of provincial bourgeois life introduces English speaking audiences to Germano Almeida, one of the outstanding writers in Portuguese today. With its novelistic breadth, the film offers a bildungsroman of a man and a society so caught up in the pursuit of conventional success and prestige it overlooks its true self almost until it is too late. Discovered in 1462 and settled before Columbus' arrival in America, the arid Cape Verde archipelago is arguably home to the oldest, most thoroughly distorted culture in the world. Indeed, the Portuguese used the islands as an advertisement for their missao civilizadora or assimilationist colonialism. Neither fully African or European, educated, mixed race Cape Verdeans served as bureaucrats throughout the empire, though they played a leading role in the anti-colonial struggle as well, as exemplified by Amilcar Cabral (see Mortu Nega.) Cape Verdeans, scattered around the Atlantic Rim by geography and economics for centuries, intuitively understood the idea of "transnational identity" long before it became a buzzword in cultural studies journals.
The production of O Testamento do Senhor Napumoceno reflects this complex cultural heritage. The director, Francisco Manso, is Portuguese; the script is based on a novel by Cape Verdean Germano Almeida; the actors are mostly Brazilian including Nelson Xavier, Maria Ceica, Chico Diaz and Zezé Motta and the soundtrack features Cape Verdean musicians Tito Paris and Césaria Evora. This is the first truly Pan-Lusophonic film production and the first to be commercially released in North America. Like Citizen Kane, O Testamento do Senhor Napumoceno is structured around the riddle of its hero's death. Why did Sr.Napumoceno Araonjo da Silva, a leading trader in the islands,leave his estate to a heretofore unknown illegitimate daughter Graça rather than his protege and nephew, Carlos, a sychophantic, carbon copy of himself? The existence of Graça suggests a whole side of Napumoceno's life few suspected, one he may have come to value above his public self. His story unfolds in flashbacks through a series of audiotapes he has made for Graça as a kind of apologia for his life.
At Napumoceno's request, the "Funeral March" from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony wheezes pompously from a generator-powered reel to reel tape deck wheeled beside his casket suggesting that our "hero" may not have been so heroic (of course, neither, it turned out was Beethoven's.) In 1928 Napumoceno arrived barefoot in Mindelo, the archipelago's only deep-water port, where he slowly worked his way up through the island's flourishing "import-export" industry, that is, smuggling. His great business coup resulted from mistakenly ordering 10,000 umbrellas for an island where it hadn't rained for two years. Facing ruin, he invoked divine intervention, unleashing an unprecedented deluge, reaping huge profits but destroying much of the housing of the poor. By 1959 Napumoceno has become a prim, self-important pillar of Mindelo society, opening a new headquarters across from his mansion and becoming an enthusiast of technological progress and all things American. He feels special kinship to another self-made man, Abraham Lincoln, because they both started their meteoric careers as wood cutters. One day during the excitement of a soccer match on the radio, he impulsively and clumsily conceives a daughter with the woman who cleans his office. Although he would prefer the child be aborted, he agrees to support her upbringing on the condition of anonymity. Over the years, as he watches Graça grow into a beautiful young woman, his pride and affection bloom. When she dismisses his interest as the prurient advances of an old man, his character begins to achieve a certain depth and pathos.
1975 marks a turning point in Napumoceno's life and that of his country. It is the year of independence from Portugal; old icons are smashed; the old provincial economic and cultural dependence on Europe represented by Napumoceno's class seems destined for the "dust bin of history;" Cape Verde is on the verge, of pursuing an autonomous, self-reliant development path. Napumoceno, sensing that his time has passed, retires from public life to dictate his memoirs for Graça.
Now at age 61, when he least expects it, when he thought his life was over, when the islands are embarking on a new life, Napumoceno falls in love, probably for the first time, with a beautiful young woman, Adélia. Their relationship, as much spiritual as physical, unfolds in long walks along a beach littered with shipwrecks, symbolizing the sacrifice of his life and so many others to the empty dreams of success. Since he is the only person in the film actually to interact with Adélia, she may in reality be his dream, the dream of a deeper, more authentic involvement with himself and the islands. In fact, he calls her "the dream of my life" and my "gazelle," even though it is unlikely he has seen many gazelle on Cape Verde. It is ironic if altogether appropriate that when Napumoceno finally falls in love it is with a dream but then isolated islands are always over-populated with dreams. Like every dream, Adélia vanishes as mysteriously as she appeared, swept away by her sailor/lover and the allure of the beyond. Napumoceno thus joins a long line of disappointed Cape Verdean dreamers, people like the frustrated soccer player, Mane in Fintar o Destino. This prevailing mood of sadness of a people who have always had to look for their dreams elsewhere, is evoked by Cape Verde's national musical form the elegiac morna, brilliantly interpreted in this film by Cape Verdean diva, Cesaria Evora. Napumoceno's own parting advice to Graça is: "Be tenacious in everything you do - and love."
* At a select breakfast gathering at MIPTV, Canale + announced that Africa, the series which has taken five years from conception to completion would go on air in August. SABC3 has purchased the series which embarks upon an unprecedented look at Africa. It has deliberately avoided the usual preconceptual world image of Africa as a continent of starvation, wars and desolation. It reveals Africa through the eyes and voices of African people living within their specific landscapes of desert, savannah, forests and mountains.The opening sequence of the series makes the point that all mankind, no matter what race or colour rose from the continent of Africa. The project was supported by National Geographic, Thirteen/WNET New York, Canale Plus and Explore International. The budget for the project was US$8 million. The production was headed by Bristol-based producer Andrew Jackson who took two years to shoot the series in 11 countries.
* CNN is to open a bureau in Lagos, Nigeria, bringing the number of CNN bureau in Africa to four. The new Lagos bureau complements CNN s existing Johannesburg, Nairobi and Cairo bureau and provides CNN for the first time with a strategic presence in West Africa. The addition of Lagos brings CNN s total bureau network to 42. Staff will be equipped with state-of-the-art and lightweight newsgathering technology to allow film, audio and on-line reports to be filed quickly for CNN s multi-platform services. CNN is available in 15 million homes across Africa. The network has reciprocal affiliate relationships with 18 local broadcasters and has 14 regular contributors to CNN World Report.
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* In a step toward becoming the next HBO, STARZ! Pictures is moving forward with its first original film, the $8 million-budgeted feature "Joe and Max," with German actor Til Schweiger to star as German boxing legend Max Schmeling for director Steve James ("Hoop Dreams"). STARZ! Pictures expects to develop two to three originally produced films this year, with that pace expected to increase to a target of four to five films next year, STARZ! Pictures vp original films Paige Orloff said. "Joe and Max," written by Jason Horwitch, will trace the real-life rivalry and unlikely friendship between the greatest heavyweight boxing champions of the 1930s: "The Brown Bomber" Joe Louis and the fair-haired Schmeling. The role of Louis has yet to be cast.
* Grammy-winning producer Dr. Dre is jumping back into the film game with the soundtrack to "Diablo" and an acting role in "Training Day." The "Diablo" soundtrack, which Dr. Dre will executive produce and release on his Aftermath label, reunites Dr. Dre with director F. Gary Gray and New Line Cinema. Dr. Dre recently wrapped shooting a role in Warner Bros. Pictures' "Training Day" opposite Denzel Washington for director Antoine Fuqua (The Replacement Killers).Written by David Ayer, "Training" tells the story of a grizzled LAPD veteran (Washington) who shows a rookie narcotics cop (Ethan Hawke) the ropes during his first day on the soul-destroying inner-city beat. Dr. Dre plays a young cop who is a member of Washington's crew.
* The life story of R&B legend Ray Charles is being prepped for the big screen. Philip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment has made a long-term deal for the option on all entertainment rights to Charles' life story with plans for a feature film, "Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Story." The deal marks the first time Charles has signed off on his life story as inspiration for a feature film. Crusader has moved quickly in developing the project, hiring newcomer Jimmy White to pen the script and scheduling a fall start for production. Crusader president Howard Baldwin said the company will hire a director in the coming weeks. The story will follow Charles' rags-to-riches story from his poor beginnings in Albany, Ga., to his rise through the music industry while battling racism, drug use and problems in love. Charles, 70, lost his sight to glaucoma at age 6.
* Cuba Gooding Jr. and "Saturday Night Live" comedian Horatio Sanz are in negotiations to star in the indie buddy comedy "Boat Trip" for Brad Krevoy's Motion Picture Corp. of America and German-based International West Pictures. Shooting is slated to start May 9 in Brazil. The project is the latest in an effort to revitalize MPCA and is the second to come under a pact between Krevoy and IWP, a joint venture between Germany-based Gemini Film and Commerzbank. IWP CEO Gerhard Schmidt said his company plans to produce five to 10 feature films budgeted at $10 million-$20 million with MPCA under the agreement. He said. "Boat Trip" was written by Mort Nathan ("Kingpin"), who will make his directorial debut on the project. The story revolves around two straight men (Gooding and Sands) who embark on a Caribbean cruise in search of love and romance only to slowly realize that they are on a gay cruise.
* Newly launched indie distributor Urbanworld Films has paid mid-six figures to acquire worldwide distribution rights to Warning Films' urban comedy "Higher Ed," the directorial debut of Jean Claude La Marre starring rapper-actor Pras. The company is targeting a summer theatrical release in five to 10 markets throughout the United States. The film also stars Aries Spears, Hill Harper and Leila Arcieri in the story of the adventures of an inner-city man (Pras) who goes to college on a track scholarship in an attempt to leave his troubled lifestyle behind. La Marre also wrote the script, has a role in the film and co-produced with Darryl Taja and Patrick McIntyre. Urbanworld president Stacy Spikes will executive produce with Pras.
* Echoing similar findings by researchers in the U.S., a study by Britain's Communications Research Group has concluded that ethnic minorities are barely represented in some of the most popular British TV programs. In one week on BBC2, the report said, the only ethnic minority characters seen on the channel's top 10 programs were cartoon characters in The Simpsons. The study also noted that although ethnic minorities tend to be increasing on British TV overall, they were simply filling roles that have traditionally been played by whites. "We were struck by how few of the ethnic minority characters we observed were displaying cultural diversity," the report said. (Cue a Spike Lee statement in the next few days - DR.SOTHA)
* Music lover Michael J. Fox was ecstatic when he was presented with an acoustic guitar autographed by his favorite musician James Taylor at a fundraising event last week. Fox was given the present by his former Spin City co-star Barry Bostwick moments after receiving boxing great Muhammad Ali presented him with the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian award for his crusade against Parkinson's Disease, from which both Ali and Fox are suffering. On receiving the guitar, Fox, who had to quit his hit sitcom when his disease became too difficult to manage, strummed a few chords then headed backstage where he discovered the second part of his gift - a note inside that read, "Dear Michael, Call me for lessons. JT."
