Father Geek back again with the regular Friday Africa-AICN Column from Dr. SOTHA and his most excellant aides; Head Nurse Hollis and Rigobert Song...

You'll all be glad to know that my (DR.SOTHA) next project, 'Polymastia Prevention'(my innovative method to cure woman plagued with more than 2 breasts), has been greenlit by the Pensive Doctors Institute (PDI). Principal Incisions will begin on the 3rd of August. Nurse Hollis will line produce, with Rigobert taking on Executive Producing duties.

If you want to play a small part in the project as hormonally imbalanced patients, e-mail us at Our Capetown Labs.

PS. We are in talks with Vaccine Productions to distribute worldwide.

SOUTH AFRICA

* Local distributors last night attended the crew/cast preview of Stefanie Sycholt's feature film, Malunde, held in Johannesburg. This is South African-born Sycholt's first feature as writer / director. Malunde (Streetchild) is described as "a road movie through the heart of the new South Africa". The film was produced by German company Traumwerk Productions, with Marlow De Mardt and Brigid Olen of DO Productions as the South African producers. On Saturday night, Malunde walked away with six NTVA Avanti Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Lead Actor (a joint award shared by the film's stars Kagiso Mtetwa and Ian Roberts). Additionally, according to Sycholt, Malunde was adjudged one of the top three Best New Director Films at the recent Munich Film Festival.

* The ProVision / Fevertree Production, Little Tracker, has been selected as a finalist in the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in the Best Children's Category. Directed by Johan Heyns, Little Tracker was chosen from among 650 entries to be a finalist. The winners will be announced on 29 September at the Awards Ceremony and Gala Dinner held at the Jackson Lake Lodge. This latest recognition follows the film's triumph at the US International Film and Video Festival.

* The hilarity ensues with the South African Box Office: The animated feature film Shrek has gone back to the top of the South African box office with R2m (about the price of a loaf of potato bread in North America - DR.SOTHA), having bumped off Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. In third place is the Sylvester Stallone race car extravaganza Driven, followed by Atlantis and The Mummy Returns.

NORTH AFRICA

* While Final Fantasy - The Spirit Within and Moulin Rouge will open and close the Piazza Grande programme respectively, this year's official competition of 19 films from 13 different countries includes ten first features (2 FROM AFRICA) and 15 world premieres. Debut projects include Meng Ong's Miss Wonton (US), Riccardo Signorell's Sheherazade (Switzerland) and Amalia Escriva's Avec Tout Mon Amour (France). The 54th edition of the festival also boasts a strong representation from women directors with seven films in the competition line-up. The world premiere of US director Peter Bogdanovich's latest feature The Cat's Meow has been selected by the Locarno International Film Festival (August 2-12) as one of the Piazza Grande open-air screenings which new festival director Irene Bignardi has now reserved for non-competition films.

Complete competition line-up:

• L'AFRANCE BY ALAIN GOMIS - SENEGAL/France - 90 minutes
• ALLA RIVOLUZIONE SULLA DUE CAVALLI by Maurizio Sciarra - Italy - 98 minutes
• AVEC TOUT MON AMOUR by Amalia Escrivá - France - 80 minutes
• BABY BOY by John Singleton - USA -130 minutes
• BICHO DE SETE CABEÇAS by Lais Bodanzky - Brazil
• COMMENT J'AI TUE MON PERE by Anne Fontaine - France - 95 minutes
• DELBARAN by Abolfazl Jalili - Iran - 96 minutes
• DERVIS by Alberto Rondalli - Italy - 115 minutes
• DONG CI BIAN WEI (CONJUGAISON) by TANG Xiaobai - Hong Kong - 97 minutes
• HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN by Thomas Imbach - Switzerland - 95 minutes
• ICH WERDE DICH AUF HÄNDEN TRAGEN by Iain Dilthey - Germany - 62 minutes
• LE LAIT DE LA TENDRESSE HUMAINE by Dominique Cabrera - France - 93 minutes
• THE LAWLESS HEART by Neil Hunter e Tom Hunsinger - Great Britain - 99 minutes
• LOVE THE HARD WAY by Peter Sehr - Germany - 104 minutes
• MANKOLANGAL (GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH) by SUBRAHMANIAN SANTAKUMAR - INDIA/AFRICA - 117 minutes
• MISS WONTON by Meng Ong - USA - 88 minutes
• NABI (THE BUTTERFLY) by Moon Seong-Wook - Corea- 106 minutes
• NON È GIUSTO by Antonietta de Lillo - Italy - 100 minutes
• SHEHERAZADE by Riccardo Signorell - Switzerland - 84 minutes

Piazza Grande line-up

• OPENING FILM FINAL FANTASY- THE SPIRITS WITHIN by Hironobu Sakaguchi - USA -106 minutes
• MOSTLY MARTHA / 3 STERNE by Sandra Nettelbeck - Germany-107 minutes
• BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY by Sharon Maguire - Great Britain / USA - 97 minutes
• THE CAT'S MEOW by Peter Bogdanovich - Canada / Germany - 110 minutes
• THE DEEP END by Scott McGehee e David Siegel - USA - 99 minutes
• EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO (Devil's Backbone)by Guillermo del Toro - Spain -106 minutes
• UN JEU D'ENFANTS by Laurent Tuel - France - 85 minutes
• THE JOY LUCK CLUB by Wayne Wang - USA - 139 minutes
• LAGAAN by Ashutosh Gowariker - India - 224 minutes
• MILLER'S CROSSING by Joel and Ethan Coen - USA- 115 minutes
• BIAN ZOU BIAN CHANG (LIFE ON A STRING) by Chen Kaige - Cina - 108 minutes
• MY NAPOLEON by Alan Taylor - Great Britain - 105 minutes
• PLANET OF THE APES by Tim Burton - USA
• DIE REISE NACH KAFIRISTAN by Fosco and Donatello Dubini - Germany / Switzerland - 90 minutes
• SILENCIO ROTO by Montxo Armendariz - Spain -115 minutes
• CLOSING FILM - MOULIN ROUGE by Baz Luhzmann - Australia - 128 minutes

* The following films were honoured at the recent Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), Festival of the Dhow Countries:

• GOLDEN DHOW Award for the Best Feature Film: Sandstorm
• SILVER DHOW Award for the Second Best Feature Film: Whispers
• GOLDEN DHOW Award for the Best Short Feature Film: One Evening in July
• SILVER DHOW Award for the Second Best Short Feature Film: The Father
• GOLDEN DHOW Award for the Best Documentary Film: A Female Cabby in Bel Abbes
• SILVER DHOW Award for the Second Best Documentary Film: When Men Cry
• PEOPLE'S CHOICE FILM AWARD: Yolgnu Boy
• CHAIRMAN'S CHOICE FILM AWARD: Tee Shirt Travels

The Best Feature Film, Sandstorm, is an Indian film based on the true story of a low-caste woman who was gang-raped for criticising child marriages. It was directed by Jag Mohan.

* Rigobert delivers another wonderful review:

Hello readers. In continuation of my dissection of the African-American culture, I bring to you an award winning documentary that exemplifies black empowerment and the reversal of social stigmas. Before I get on with the review remember to e-mail me at rigobertsong@hotmail.com with your thoughts on African film.

The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords - Produced by Stanley Nelson - Narrated by Joe Morton - Original Music by Ron Carter - 86 minutes

'The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords' is the first film to chronicle the history of the black press - and its central role in the construction of modern African American identity. It recounts the largely forgotten stories of generations of black journalists who risked life and livelihood so African Americans could represent themselves in their own words and images.

The Black Press takes viewers "behind the veil" of segregation to recover a distinctly black perspective on key events from antebellum America to the Civil Rights Movement. It offers an intimate social history of African American life during these turbulent years - the achievements trumpeted, defeats pondered, celebrities admired, even the products advertized.

From the founding of the first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, in 1827, black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass recognized the press as a powerful weapon against the enforced silence of slavery. This tradition of crusading journalism was carried on by pioneering scribes like Ida B. Wells, one of the first female newspaper owners in America and a leader in the fight against lynchings and Jim Crow. Robert S. Abbott built the Chicago Defender into the most powerful and successful black-owned newspaper of all time and is often credited with inspiring the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the Northern cities.

The Black Press goes on to contrast mainstream coverage of World War II with the nearly forgotten "Double V" campaign spearheaded by the Pittsburgh Courier. Black newspapers, linking the struggle against fascism abroad to segregation at home, terrified J. Edgar Hoover into trying to indict them for sedition, and helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement to come. Charlotta Bass, editor and publisher of the California Eagle for 40 years, ran for Vice President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1952, the first African American to run for national office.

Ironically, the black press in a sense became a victim of the success of the very movements it nurtured. During the Civil Rights struggles and urban insurrections of the '60s, white-owned papers at last began to hire African American journalists and even compete for black readership. The film asks if integration into the mainstream media has left many communities bereft of a committed black journalistic presence.

The Black Press commemorates an heroic and indispensable chapter in the on-going struggle for a diverse and democratic media. It demonstrates that the written word has been as fundamental as music or religion in the evolution of African American consciousness. And it will convince students that it is as important today as in the past for black media professionals to play a vigorous role not just in print media but in the rapidly evolving information technologies of the future.

Here are a list of the Awards this film has won:

• 2000 Alfred I. duPont Award
• 1999 Sundance Film Festival: Freedom of Expression Award
• 1999 San Francisco Int'l Film Festival: Golden Spire
• 1998 American Library Association: Distinguished Video for Adults

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired U.S. distribution rights to the action comedy "The 51st State" from Alliance Atlantis. The Ronny Yu-directed film, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle, will be released by the studio's specialty arm, Screen Gems, next year. Alliance Atlantis, which financed the film with the United Kingdom's Film Consortium, has also completed foreign deals for "51st" to Gaga in Japan, New World in Spain, Metropolitan in France and Kinowelt in Germany, among others. Alliance retains distribution rights in Canada and in the United Kingdom through its Momentum Pictures. The film centers on Elmo McElroy (Jackson), an American master chemist who heads to England to introduce a new designer drug to the European market. McElroy soon becomes embroiled in a web of double-dealing through Liverpool's underground rave scene, escorted by a local named Felix (Carlyle). Emily Mortimer, Rhys Ifans, Ricky Tomlinson, Sean Pertwee and Meat Loaf round out the cast.

* Taye Diggs ("How Stella Got Her Groove Back") is in negotiations to star opposite Sanaa Lathan in Fox Searchlight Pictures' urban love story "Brown Sugar" for director Rick Famuyiwa. Shooting is scheduled to begin by year's end on the project, budgeted in the $8 million range. "Sugar," described as a black "When Harry Met Sally ...," marks a reteaming of Diggs and Lathan. The duo starred in Universal Pictures' 1999 wedding comedy "The Best Man." This time, Diggs will play an A&R executive for a hip-hop record label and the love interest of a magazine editor played by Lathan. Mike Elliot wrote the original draft of the script, with a rewrite by Famuyiwa. Peter Heller will produce with executive producer Magic Johnson. Executive vp production Claudia Lewis and creative executive Josh Deighton brought the project to Searchlight and will oversee it for president Peter Rice. Diggs, repped by CAA and Magus Entertainment, most recently starred on television as Jackson Duper on Fox's "Ally McBeal." His feature credits also include Artisan's "The Way of the Gun," Warner Bros.' "House on Haunted Hill," Paramount Pictures' "The Wood" and Columbia Pictures' "Go."

* "Rush Hour 2" will get a mile-high premiere this month courtesy of tie-in partner United Airlines and the Hong Kong Tourism Board. The film, set largely in Hong Kong, will be the first film in decades to premiere on an airline, and it is also being promoted throughout July and August on most United flights. The sequel to the 1998 hit, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, will debut on a single Los Angeles-to-Hong Kong flight July 26, eight days ahead of the movie's theatrical opening. A United spokesman said the last time he is aware of United, or any other airline, having premiered a film was in 1964 for the MGM release "Quick Before It Melts." A New Line spokesman said "Rush Hour 2" will be shown on the flight exactly as it will appear in theaters, without the alterations that are common for airline prints. (I hope NRG don't get any ideas - testing a rough cut of a film on an airline - think of the demographics? - DR.SOTHA)

* Scary Movie 2 director Keenen Ivory Wayans has revealed that although he got "a good amount of footage of [Marlon] Brando" before the actor was forced to pull out of the film, none of it will be used on the Scary Movie 2 DVD. "That would be unfair to him because he forfeited his salary," Wayans told the Calgary Sun. Brando had been signed -- for $2 million -- to play the role of a priest in a spoof of The Exorcist in the film, but was forced to pull out because of a bout with pneumonia. Natasha Lyonne, who was to have appeared opposite Brando as a possessed teenager, told the newspaper that Brando at first resisted efforts to send him home. "He thought [the spoof] was a hilarious idea and [he] had so many good ideas. He'd rework a lot of his dialogue so that it was so much funnier coming from him."

* The PGA Tour has put together a new four-year deal (2003-2007) with three television networks and three cable outlets worth $900 million, a 55 percent increase over the current package, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing individuals familiar with the deal. The newspaper noted that Tour execs had been hoping to get $1 billion but that slumping ad spending and lack of competition among the networks for the broadcast rights tempered the increase. The newspaper observed that, thanks to the popularity of Tiger Woods, golf is the only sport that has increased its audience in recent years, while ratings for other sports have been marked by sizable erosion.

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT