Father Geek here taking barely enough time out from the QT5 film fest to post SOTHA's Africa-AICN column for this week... got to run... I've got 7 more flicks to see between now and dawn.

There's only one person in this world that scares me, and his name is DR.KOLKYASKI. This man/animal prowls the streets at nights looking for unsuspecting victims. Once he's captured them, he stores them in a dungeon. During dinner with his family he brings them out one by one and administers experimental electro-magnetic treatment. Word leaking out from the underworld has it, that his wife, son and 2 sisters, give helpful suggestions as to which part of the anatomy KOLKYASKI should target on his victims. This all over a pregnant spaghetti stroganoff dish. What kind of animals are these.

If you think KOLKYASKI is bringing the medical institute into disrepute, and should be hunted down and slain like the animal that he is, you just go ahead and e-mail me, DR.SOTHA, at africaaicn@hotmail.com

I know that KOLKYASKI exists, so don't gimme that 'greatest trick the devil ever pulled' crappola.

SOUTH AFRICA

* Dv8 invites submissions for stories to be developed for digital feature film production with the financial assistance of The Hubert Bals Fund (Holland). Dv8 Pictures is an alliance of film producers Joel Phiri (Ice Media), Jeremy Nathan (Avatar Digital) and Kobus Botha (Ballistic Pictures), who have a history in developing, producing, marketing and distributing African feature films. The producers have the intention to option and acquire the selected ideas in order to develop scripts. Once developed, eight digital feature films will be produced. Any genre of story is welcome and writers should focus on small casts and few locations. Up to 12 selected ideas will be developed into scripts - these will be announced at the Sithengi Film & Television Market 2001, which will be held from 12 to 15 November in Cape Town. Writers must submit via email a one-page synopsis outlining characters and story, as well as their CV and an application form. The Deadline for submissions is 15 September 2001. For more info contact Nirvana Singh at dv8@icemedia.co.za or visit www.ballistic.co.za/dv8.

* Having successfully produced and distributed film and television internationally for more than 10 years, Peakviewing Transatlantic Plc is opening an animation studio in Johannesburg, South Africa. The new studio will produce both 3D graphic animation films and also 'claymation' features. With a production schedule already looking at two animation and one claymation films per year, the hunt is on for the right people to ensure this new division is as successful as the company's other divisions in film and new media. The company is also looking for individual animation specialists interested in full time or contract work in South Africa, whether writers, directors, V/O artists, animation producers, supervising animators or animators. For more information, contact Ed Thomas, Vice President - Production & Design on +44 1453 826300 or e-mail (edward.thomas@peakviewing.co.za)

* South African football will come under spotlight this coming weekend on BBC World's World Business Report: A Game of Two Halves. The programme, a broadcast starting on Friday, 17 August 2001, will place Orlando Pirates chairman Irvin Khoza, South African Football Association CEO Danny Jordaan, national under-20 captain and Orlando Pirates midfielder Benedict Vilakazi and a host of other soccer luminaries in the host seat as it goes beneath the surface of the football business in South Africa.

* The Embassy of Israel and Cinema Nouveau have announced a film festival that will consist of six films displaying the skills of Israeli filmmakers. The films will be shown in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Filmmaking in Israel has undergone major developments since its inception in the 1950's. While the first features produced and directed by Israelis tended, like literature, to be cast in the heroic mould of that period, some recent films are deeply rooted in the Israeli experience, such as Holocaust survivors and their children (Under the Domin Tree) and the travails of new immigrants. Other films reflect a more predominant trend towards present Israeli reality dealing with the Israel-Arab confrontation. The festival will open at Rosebank Mall (Johannesburg) on 17 August and at Cavendish Square (Cape Town) on 31 August.

* Victoria West's historic Art Deco cinema, the only one of its kind still operating in South Africa, hosts the country's first independent film festival from 25 September 2001 to 6 October 2001. Awards, personalities, master classes, discussions, guided tours of the the theatre and movie museum, an original art exhibition and a lively arts and crafts market all add to the unique flavour of this showcase of independent film in the Karoo. For more info contact gillianrennie@xsinet.co.za.

* A man once said the South African Box Office is like a cheap ass comedian, for a second you might find it funny, but then it just becomes a sad spectacle: Swordfish, starring John Travolta, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman is currently at the top of the South African box office, having made R1 689 039 in its first two weeks of release. In the number two spot is the Morgan Freeman thriller, Along Came a Spider, followed by Dr Dolittle 2 and Crocodile Dundee 3. Former number one, Shrek, is at number five, with total box office earnings of R13 649 000 to date.

NORTH AFRICA

* Somebody give this man an award, another superlative Rigobert Song review:

Hello all, thank you for all your positive feedback to my African-American reviews over the last few weeks. It seems to have really hit a nerve in cyberspace. Freedom on My Mind needs to be placed in the top 10% of documentaries 'ever' made. It is that good. It is better than Alan Parker's 'Mississippi Burning', more profound and probing. Before I continue, please keep sending your comments to rigobertsong@hotmail.com

FREEDOM ON MY MIND -- Produced/Directed by Connie Field & Marilyn Mulford 110 minutes

Nominated for an Academy Award, winner of both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians awards for best documentary, this landmark film tells the story of the Mississippi freedom movement in the early 1960s when a handful of young activists changed history.

When Bob Moses, a young Harvard student filled with gentle determination, came to Mississippi in 1961 to head up the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's voter registration drive, a black man could be convicted of "eye rape" for looking at a white woman; all African Americans were denied the right to vote. The first man to accompany Moses to the courthouse to register, a farmer named Herbert Lee, was later shot dead by a state legislator.

We witness the growing confidence and courage of poverty-stricken sharecroppers, maids and day laborers as they confront jail, beatings and even murder for the simple right to vote. One who joined the campaign, Endesha Ida Mae Holland, a former prostitute, today a Ph.D., recalls, "White people looked me in the face for the first time. I couldn't turn back."

In 1964, organizers, fearing for their lives and hoping to attract the attention of the nation and federal government, recruited 1,000 mostly white college kids from around the country to join them for Freedom Summer. Volunteers recall the culture clash between the largely white, middle class outsiders and the poor black residents whose homes and dinner tables they shared.

Although three students were murdered, the drive signed up 80,000 members for the insurgent Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and sent an optimistic delegation, led by sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer, to the 1964 Democratic convention. We share their crushing betrayal by President Johnson and Hubert Humphrey which, Moses argues, led a generation of disillusioned young black people to reject "the system."

Yet Freedom Summer helped transform political power in the South forever, leading to passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Today Mississippi has more black elected officials than any other state. Those who participated in the struggle took away a profound sense of possibility and a deepened commitment to justice. So too will viewers of this film. This is history at its very best, illuminating, entertaining and disturbing. Some quotes to testify to the greatness of this landmark documentary:

"Conveys the human dimensions of the fight with such sensitivity and intelligence and pure emotional insight that it seems as if the facts were being set down for the very first time...This amazing work chases away despair." --Washington Post --

"Freedom On My Mind is a story of courage on the front lines in the battle against fear and ignorance. But mostly, it's a story of America, in all its glory and all its shame...Must viewing!" --Chicago Tribune

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* The founder of Britain's Black FilmMaker magazine has accused the Edinburgh International Film Festival of ignoring black filmmakers. In an interview with the London Independent, Manlike Shabazz charged: "There are no films at Edinburgh this year that have been shot by a black director. ... There are some great films out there that will never be seen by a U.K. audience." The festival's head of programs, Nicola Pierson, responded. "We don't select films on the basis of the director's skin color. We judge purely on the quality of the film. ... We have an open submission process and two people will watch every film we receive. The question is: is it any good?"

* Actor Michael Clarke Duncan's feet haven't touched the ground since starring in The Green Mile and he still gets starstruck. The bulky six foot five incher, got a part in 1998 blockbuster Armageddon, before landing his Oscar-nominated role as gifted prison inmate John Coffey. He says of his found fame, "It's cool, I'm having a ball. Fame, I don't think I'll ever get used to it." Before he joined the likes of Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis on the silver screen, Michael struggled to pay his rent in a $5.20 per-hour job at a gas company and more recently a security worker. He smirks, "We went to a Los Angeles Lakers' basketball game. In the middle of the game, the cameras panned around to show celebrities in the crowd. Jack Nicholson flashed up and did a cool little wave. Then they showed me and I was yelling and waving like a fan. I haven't got that hollywood mystique yet. I'm still clowning around. I like to have fun and I'm still getting used to all this." (Michael take some tips from Jack, he'll give you that Hollywood mystique - DR.SOTHA)

* The NAACP says television networks have made scant progress in putting minorities in front of and behind cameras, prompting the civil rights group to renew threats of a broadcast boycott. After looking at the results of agreements negotiated by the NAACP last year to improve diversity at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, the civil rights organization's report released today found that small gains were made in hiring actors for prime-time series. But there was little change in minority representation in the executive ranks -- those who have the ultimate authority to decide what is produced and aired. "The snail's pace reaction by some of the networks" 18 months after the agreements were first reached has been discouraging, according to the NAACP report.

* Tyra Banks is heading off to camp in the rugged mountains above Los Angeles - to boost the self-esteem of hordes of teenage girls. The supermodel-turned-actress will take 80 girls with her on the TZone retreat to address such issues as gender stereotyping, insecurities, self-esteem and relationships with the opposite sex. The retreat, which Tyra founded, is currently in its second year, and she now aims to expand to cities across the country. She says, "Last year I paid all the costs myself. This year there were a few donations, plus the $125,000 I won for TZone on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire has helped a lot. I've been so fortunate in my life, I'm anxious to help other girls. During our week-long sessions at camp, I tell them about everything from the use of make-up to the handling of hardships. Once I had a growth spurt of four inches and lost 40 pounds without dieting. I was laughed at and ridiculed. It's not politically incorrect to make skinny jokes - and for two or three years it was tough on me." (It's a tough life Tyra, but I'm sure the money helps - DR.SOTHA)

* The NAACP has again accused the major television networks of dragging their feet in efforts to promote ethnic and racial diversity on both sides of the cameras. In an address to the organization's 92nd annual convention in New Orleans, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume once again threatened to boycott one of the major networks unless progress speeded up. He declined to name the network but did say that he believes ABC has made the slowest progress. Each of the networks later issued statements denying Mfume's accusations and claiming that they have made significant efforts to increase minority involvement.

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT