Everybody seems to be in transit to Cannes but Moriarty and me. Yeah, ol' Father Geek here is holding down the fort over here at Geek Headquarters, Austin branch, annnnnd turning into construction laborer lad at the same time, discovering muscles I thought I'd lost 25 years ago... Here's SOTHA, his nurses, and Rigobert Song with this weeks Africa-AICN column...

Four Hours to departure to the South of France; time is sifting away rapidly. Nice, Cannes, nudists, showboats, croissants, exhibitionists, secret Tarantino film, Coen Brother's 'The Man Who Wasn't There', Apocalypse Then, Hal Hartley's 'Monster', Moulon Rouge (hoo haa), LOTR, and DR.SOTHA groupies loom on the horizon.

Hey there palookas, DR.SOTHA here to quickly fire this Africa-AICN off before I take off for 'zee French Riiviierra'. I'll beee meeetiiing wiit Harryee iin a few houuurs'. And they say French is a difficult language. If you got a film you want me to see there, e-mail me now at africaaicn@hotmail.com I'll see you at Cannes.

Nurse Hollis, I believe that's the first time in your life you used a pun - so thank you I will have a 'Nice' day..

SOUTH AFRICA

Taken from www.screenafrica.com

* The Film and Publication Board has decided not to allow the distribution or public exhibition of the extremely violent 1979 exploitation film "Cannibal Holocaust" (directed by Italian filmmaker Ruggero Deodata). "Cannibal Holocaust" has long been cited as one of the most extreme films ever made and features scenes of utter cruelty towards both humans and animals. Besides scenes in which various people are ripped apart, dismembered, tortured and castrated, the film includes the depiction of violent rape, including an horrific sequence in which a woman is sexually violated by means of "ritualistic" rape with an oversized stone phallus. The examiners who had to endure the screening of the gruelling video all agreed that this was undoubtedly the most disturbing film they had yet encountered. It was felt that, although the film carries a brutal message about the West's rape of tribal cultures, this message is unlikely to penetrate through the gory layers of intense sadism, bloodlust and perverse sexual violence. The examiners were particularly concerned that much of the violence in the film is heavily sexualised and that the combination of sex, violence and explicit nudity made it difficult to establish exactly what message the filmmakers were attempting to convey. The way in which the film has already been advertised by its intended distributor further alarmed the Board. It is clear that the distributor had intended on exploiting the violence and carnage that pervade the film. After lengthy discussion, the committee responsible for examining the video gave it an "XX" in accordance with Schedule 6 of the Films and Publications Act, which states that "A film shall be classified as XX if, judged within context, it contains a scene or scenes, simulated or real, of any of the following: ".(4) explicit sexual conduct which degrades a person and which constitutes incitement to cause harm; or (5) the explicit infliction of extreme violence or the explicit effects of extreme violence which constitutes incitement to cause harm". Films which are classified XX may not be screened or distributed to the South African public, although the private possession thereof is not illegal. The possession of child pornography, however, which is also classified XX, is illegal (Wheeww, intense issue indeed - DR.SOTHA.)

* Good news for lovers of European films! The European Union and Cinema Nouveau have joined forces to present the 2001 European Film Festival to audiences in Pretoria (Brooklyn Mall) and in Cape Town (Cavendish Square). The festival will feature one entry from each of the fourteen European Union member states represented in South Africa, and will showcase some of the boldest and best new works to emerge from contemporary European Cinema. Cinema Nouveau executive, Nico van der Merwe said, "The festival is bound to be both an entertaining and enriching experience for South African audiences. Local audiences are more and more interested in non-American films and this festival will give them the opportunity to see some of the best films from Europe." European Union representative at the Swedish Embassy, Ulrika Soneson said that a festival of this nature is a great opportunity to highlight European culture in South Africa. "This is a wonderful opportunity for the EU and South Africa to merge and encourage cultural exchange between Europe and South Africa". Countries participating will be Great Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Greece, Germany and Spain. FRU's contribution will also extend to the inclusion of a fine selection of short African Films to this year's event. Zola Maseko's "Foreigner" and a selection of short films from the 'Short and Curlies' series will add a defined African flavor to this year's film festival program. FRU will arrange for both Mr. Masco and Mr.Teabag Mahlatsi (producer of 'Portrait of a Young Man Drowning' - part of the 'Short and Curly' short film series to introduce their films to cinema audiences.

Entrance is FREE and the festival will open in Pretoria on 11 May 2001 at Brooklyn Nouveau and in Cape Town at Cavendish Nouveau on 1 June 2001.

NORTH AFRICA

* A tidbit on the Mummy shoot in MOROCCO: The Mummy Returns stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velazquez were forced to endure bad weather and multiple injuries during filming of their new movie. The cast had to contend with blinding sandstorms and torrential rains during the seven-week shoot in the Sahara Desert. It got so bad that 90 crew members were airlifted to safety in a Moroccan army helicopter. Director Stephen Sommers says, "It was like something biblical. It was a quarter-mile-high wall of brownness. Then it rained, and a river opened up." Luckily nobody was seriously hurt, and some of the Moroccan soldiers and horses got to be extras in battle scenes. But Sommers admits he was a far from good host for Fraser. He continues, "I blew up Brendan's knee, broke one of his ribs, and tore a disc in his back. Every once in a while, when you see a pained look on Brendan's face, he ain't faking it." He adds, "Rachel and Patricia will never be hand models. Their fingers are all scarred up from the film's spear fights."

* As always another wonderful review from Rigobert Song:

Hi there readers, I hope DR.SOTHA remembers at Cannes that it's not just about the parties and the girls and the drinks (Yes it - yes it is - yes it is!! - DR.SOTHA), but also about the range of films on showcase (Yeah okay, but it's also about the parties and the girls and the drinks - DR.SOTHA). If he finds anything like 'A Walk in the Night' he won't soon forget it. It's a gut churning film with powerful themes woven around its taught narrative, but before I go on with this review remember to e-mail me at rigobertsong@hotmail.com and talk about African Film. Also like to wish my compatriot Sotha a great time at Cannes - enjoy.

A WALK IN THE NIGHT - Directed by Mickey Madoda Dube -- South Africa -- 78 minutes In English and Afrikaans with English subtitles

"A Walk in the Night" is one of the first films from a new generation of talented young black South African filmmakers who have become active since the overthrow of apartheid in 1994. Mickey Madoda Dube's debut feature adapts Alex La Guma's celebrated 1962 novella of the same name into a fast-paced crime thriller set in present day Johannesburg. The fact that this story could be so convincingly updated to the present indicates how little racial power dynamics in South Africa have changed.. The fact that this program was produced and broadcast by the government owned South African Broadcasting Corporation shows how much they have.

Alex La Guma (1925-1986), the son of a leading early anti-apartheid activist, was himself imprisoned twice for his political activities - in 1956 as part of the Treason Trials and in 1962 for progressive journalism. He wrote "A Walk in the Night" while banned (under house arrest) and it was originally published outside the country in Nigeria. In 1967 he fled South Africa for Britain, dying in exile in 1986 while the ANC's representative in Cuba. The filmmaker, Mickey Madoda Dube, was born in Soweto in 1960 and studied drama at the University of Witswatersrand and film on a Fulbright at the University of Southern California. Since returning to South Africa, he has collaborated in a series of short story adaptations as well as produced eight dramas and a five part series on the Truth and Justice Commission for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Dube's film adaptation shifts the emphasis of La Guma's story in several significant ways. For example, by moving the location from Capetown's vibrant District 6 in the 1950s to a drab, working class Johannesburg neighborhood today, the original story's Coloured flavor has become more generic, non-white South Africans. In fact, the milieu of police brutality, frustrated young men and omnipresent crime which Dube so powerfully evokes, will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with our own inner cities. Dube's script also tightens the personal ties between the major characters, condensing the drama and heightening the ultimate sense of tragedy. In so doing, he is perhaps suggesting that the fate of all South Africans has become more closely intertwined than ever before.

Dube frames his film with references to the ghost-walking scene in Act 1 of Shakespeare's Hamlet . In La Guma's original, the bard is quoted only once, although, significantly, the novella takes its title from this passage: "I am thy father's spirit doomed for a certain term to walk the night." The central character, Mikey, is clearly intended to have parallels with Hamlet. His patrimony has also been unjustly usurped, in this case, by South Africa's white supremacist regime. Mikey's "Uncle" Doughty, like Hamlet's uncle Claudius, has had an affair with his mother and Mikey ends up killing him, though this brings not resolution but further tragedy. The sordid nightscape of Johannesburg and the flashing sparks of the steel mill where Mikey worked evoke the Hell from which the ghost seeks release through his son's revenge.

"A Walk in the Night" recounts a single terrible night when the fragile world of Mikey Adonis, a young Coloured steel worker, disintegrates. As the pressures on Mikey build, we see a decent man driven to an act of brutality by a racist society which humiliates him at every turn. The parallels with Richard Wright's seminal portrait of black rage in Native Son are unavoidable. Mikey has just been fired from his job because he objected when his foreman called him "kaffir," a racial epithet. Coming out of the factory, he runs into his girlfriend's brother Joey, an "at risk" youth dabbling in male prostitution and drug running in response to South Africa's 40% black unemployment rate. Mikey, a respected father figure for the boy, tries to save him from the gangster life-style but realizes that his own recent work experience doesn't offer a very promising alternative. Next his girlfriend, Zelda, tells him she is pregnant, the day he has lost the job he would need to support a family. Finally, on his way home, a racist cop harasses him for no other reason than to force Mikey to call him "baas," stripping away whatever dignity Mikey might have left.

Mikey begins a drinking binge with his Uncle Doughty, a harmless neighborhood drunk and broken down Irish actor who was close to his mother and him as a child. As the evening wears on, Mikey becomes more offended by Uncle Doughty's presumptions of intimacy, telling him he doesn't have a white uncle. Like many well-meaning white people Uncle Doughty fails to recognize the radical gap between what they experience and the disrespect a black man encounters every day. When Uncle Doughty persists in calling him, "Mikey, my boy," saying that, "It's just a manner of speech," Mikey explodes and in a rage kills him. The film has shown how words can build up incrementally with an almost physical force until the most casual social encounter can seem to encapsulate an entire oppressive social system with devastating consequences.

Joey visits Mikey soon after Uncle Doughty's murder and is mistakenly accused of the crime; he flees into the night pursued by the police. Mikey chases after him, appalled at what he has done to Uncle Doughty and Joey. But he is too late to prevent the same rogue cop who harassed him earlier from shooting Joey at point blank range. The policeman then turns his gun on Mikey but, in a radical departure from the original novella, he is shot by his white partner before he can shoot Mikey. However improbable this may seem, it suggests that, although racism is still rampant in post-apartheid South Africa, it is now possible for some to see things in terms of basic human rights instead of ethnic loyalty. An angry crowd has gathered around Joey's shooting and, in the film's last scene, they march into the dawn out of the long night of apartheid with somber determination.

Mikey is no Hamlet; rather than a dead tragic hero, he is a man living with his deeply flawed actions. In the last scenes, there is little sense of vindication yet a catharsis of sorts has occurred, at least for the viewer, a resolution to stop this tragedy from repeating itself. By updating an apartheid era story into the post-apartheid period, Mickey Dube has squarely confronted the central issue facing South Africa and its cinema: how both to reveal the pentimento of the past persistent in the present and at the same time show that new, non-racialist scenarios are available for the future.

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* Former James Bond star Roger Moore will venture into comedy as he is in negotiations to join the cast of the indie feature "Boat Trip" for first-time director Mort Nathan. Shooting begins at the end of the month in Germany, with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Horatio Sanz ( Saturday Night Live) in lead roles. In addition, Roselyn Sanchez has been cast as the female lead in the film, which is a joint venture between Brad Krevoy's Motion Picture Corporation of America and Germany-based International West Pictures. Co-written by Nathan and William Bigelow, the story centers on two straight men (Gooding and Sanz) who embark on a Caribbean cruise on the USS Calypso in search of love and romance only to realize that they are on a gay cruise. Moore would play Lloyd, an elegantly dressed gay man who served for 30 years in the Army. Sanchez plays Britt, the ship's only female crew member, who befriends Gooding thinking he is gay yet finds herself falling in love with him. (This explains why he was touting Gooding Jnr as the first black Bond - because the dude has a crush on him in the film - DR.SOTHA)

* Jamie Foxx has signed a feature film development deal with Paramount-based Nickelodeon Movies to co-write, executive produce and star in a family comedy tentatively titled "We Do." "Bentley Kyle Evans, a writer on Foxx's WB Network series, will co-write the film with Foxx. The two sold it as a pitch to Nickelodeon. The story is told through the eyes of a 12-year-old who is the nephew-in-law to a commitment-shy bachelor (Foxx) who marries a woman with a large extended family.

* And now something for the dreamer in all of us: Cindy Crawford has had an affair with basketball giant Shaquille O'Neal - according to the athlete himself. The 7 foot 1 inch star claimed on a Los Angeles radio show that he slept with the beauty. Friends say that the pair enjoyed a passionate night together while they were both single in the mid '90s. A source says, "Shaq wasn't an L.A. Laker yet and he had hopes of moving to L.A. and becoming a movie star. Cindy was still licking her wounds from her July 1994 split with Richard Gere and they simply fell into each other's arms." Cindy's representatives deny the claim and one insider adds, "Cindy is deeply embarrassed that Shaq opened his big mouth. And Rande is furious too. She has a lot on her plate with marriage motherhood and her career. It was something that happened in the past when she was single, but she resents having it thrown in her husband Rande Gerber's face in public." (Ouch - DR.SOTHA)

* Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network has removed 12 cartoons from a Bugs Bunny Marathon set for next month because they include racial and ethnic stereotypes, the Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper said that although the 12 cartoons were originally going to be accompanied by prominent disclaimers ("Cartoon Network does not endorse the use of racial slurs. These vintage cartoons are presented as representative of the time in which they were created and are presented for their historical value."), executives of the network decided to yank them after receiving messages from executives of corporate sibling Warner Bros. expressing their displeasure. Warner's, the newspaper said, "stopped short of a veto."

Approximately 3 and a half hours to go and I'll be off to Cannes, (about the same time it takes Nurse Hollis to wheel a gurney around the wards.)

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT