Father Geek reporting in briefly with this week ending Africa-AICN Column from Dr. SOTHA and reviewer Rigobert Song...

DR.SOTHA here wondering how two pot bellied pigs created waves over the weekend when they raided a butchery in Indonesia.

That’s so weird. Two years ago I implanted neuron capacity into 2 piglets in Cameroon. The experiment was to see whether the piglets would develop motive and action. They pulled the financing on me, so I never got to find out if it worked. Seems there was a mobile side-effect to the procedure, how else do you explain them tracking from Cameroon to Indonesia? Man I never cease to amaze myself.

If you were one of the unlucky victims of the attack, email us at My Experimental Brain Implant Labs and tell us all about it. I loved those pesky little critters…

SOUTH AFRICA

* Appearing on the Jay Leno show this past week, Will Smith praised former South African president Nelson Mandela for being a true hero and modern icon for a young generation emerging through years of oppression. Rumors were abuzz that Smith may play Mandela in the planned biography titled ‘The Long Walk to Freedom’ to be directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), but producer Anant Singh insisted he was too young for the part. Morgan Freeman is presumably still in line to play Mandela in the later years of his life. The project has been stalling over the past 4 years, because producers were still searching for actors to portray Mandela over a 7 decade span. The planned film is now in the late stages of pre-production. (Thanks to Jonathan at www.film-fix.com for sending me the story – DR.SOTHA)

* Shooting has been completed on the Jean-Pierre Roux film ‘The Piano Player’ starring Dennis Hopper and Christopher Lambert. The film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa and is about a man who returns home to be haunted by ancient demons from his past. Producer Andrea Klein describes it as “an action-paced journey that irrecoverably changes the lives of the characters, forces new alliances and ultimately leads them to truth. Let’s hope it doesn’t go straight to video.

* Local programme Madam and Eve has been nominated for the prestigious 2002 Rose d' Or Competition. This international festival recognises entertainment television shows around the world. Our very own Madam and Eve produced by Roberta Durrant of Penguin Films is one of 19 shows nominated in the sitcom category and is the only South African production to be nominated for this festival. Madam and Eve has been chosen out of over 300 entries from around the world, amongst the other nominees in the sitcom category are The Ellen Show (Ellen Degeneres) and the British sitcoms Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and Perfect World. The Golden Rose which takes place in Montreux, Switzerland in April hosts the most prestigious international awards for entertainment television programmes. The goal of the festival is to reward originality, quality and creativity in entertainment and to encourage excellence i! n television. The characters of this comic strip turned TV show have become national heroes and judging by the ratings it is no surprise. into the third week of its second season which began flighting in February it has become Etv's top local programme. The original cartoon drawings are syndicated in 11 publications and it is easy to see why the antics of these best friends - a madam and her maid hold a special place in South Africans hearts. The unique formula of Madam and Eve caught the attention of the BBC and they id a news story on the transition of South Africa's best loved cartoon from strip to screen and how it keeps audiences keep laughing. A recipe that appeals to all age groups and race groups around the country Keeping this show at the top are Val Donald Bell as the white middle-aged Madam - Gwen Anderson and Tina Jaxa as Eve, her sexy, sassy maid. They are supported by a talented cast which includes Pat Sanders as Gwen's mother, Joe Mafela as Sol the gardener cu! m handyman and Jenny Steyn as Marge Madams next-door neighbour.

NORTH AFRICA

* Time for Rigobert Song:

Hello Readers. Well it’s a real shame that films like ‘Kafi’s Story’ don’t get to see the light of day when you consider how prophetic it is of our own world crisis in the Middle East. Shot almost ten years ago, it holds up startlingly well, and makes some profound comments on a society unhinged by corruption and exploitation.

Remember to email me at My North African Film Library with your African film thoughts.

KAFI'S STORY

Produced and Directed by Arthur Howes and Amy Hardie -- 53 minutes In Nuba, Arabic and English with English Subtitles

Kafi's Story and Nuba Conversations, two films shot in the same places by the same filmmaker only ten years apart, offer an opportunity to measure the full devastation of Africa's civil wars. They expose a human rights tragedy of epic proportions which has remained invisible to the rest of the world: the deliberate destruction of the ancient Nuba civilization by the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Sudan. This conflict is emblematic of how viable societies from Somalia to Sierra Leone have been swept away in carnage leaving only bands of armed combatants and refugee camps in their wake.

Kafi's Story captures Nuba life at the moment before it was engulfed in the Sudanese civil war. Kafi narrates his own story into a portable tape record as he travels from his village, Torogi, to Khartoum to earn enough money to buy a new dress for his second wife, Tete. His journey begins among the granite outcroppings in south central Sudan which has preserved the Nuba way of life for millennia against invaders from the North: the Kushite kingdoms, Arab slave traders and, more recently, the fundamentalist Sudanese regime.

Unlike the "unspoiled" Nuba mythologized in Leni Reifenstahl's celebrated coffee table books, Kafi is quite consciously negotiating his own path between modernity and tradition. In Khartoum, Kafi is initially amazed that the buildings seem "as big as mountains" yet he and other Nuba immigrants adjust to back-breaking factory work, going to Indian movies and relaxing on their days off on the banks of Nile. The lure of the city also puts stress on Nuba society; it's never certain whether the men will return from the city and Kafi has doubts about the fidelity of his first wife back home. Now that the Nuba have become so dispersed, Kafi says he does not know where the Nuba are. Kafi and the other Nuba react to the presence of the camera with neither awe nor apprehension; they seem to welcome the camera ! as an extension of their open, out-going, hospitable lifestyle. At the same time, they rapidly become sophisticated about the way film conventions can frame reality. When a friend walks away from a shot, they joke that he is walking into the screen, like a cowboy striding into the sunset. At the film's end Kafi asks the filmmaker for one thing: a camera of his own.

There are ominous signs everywhere that Kafi's plans for a home and family, may not be realized: Sudanese soldiers are camped near the village; the harsh Islamic sharia law is being imposed on the more relaxed Nuba. Kafi ends the story with a touching formal farewell to the future viewers who having traveled so far with him will ask "where is Kafi now?" He could not have realized how poignant that remark would become; less than a month after filming stopped, Torogi was a battle zone. Here’s what other’s had to say:

"A film about an ordinary person in the so called 'third world' seen mainly through his eyes…An amazing documentary." -- BBC Documentary Award

"A unique documentary this genuinely intimate portrait of life in present-day Sudan is hypnotically absorbing." --The Guardian

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* After a nationwide search, newcomer Omar Benson Miller has been tapped to star as famed '70s cartoon character Fat Albert in 20th Century Fox/Davis Entertainment's live-action feature of the same name. Production is slated to begin next month in Los Angeles and Philadelphia with Forest Whitaker directing. The project follows Fat Albert and his posse of friends, who come to life when they walk out of the cartoon and into the real world, resulting in havoc and high jinks. Bill Cosby and Charles Kipps wrote the original draft of the screenplay, which is inspired by Cosby's long-running CBS cartoon "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids."

* Halle Berry is on a mission to be a radically reforming black actress - a pursuit that has often been an uphill battle. Berry claims to have had several encounters with racism during her film career, which now includes an Oscar nomination, and she's determined to make it easier for the black stars of the future. She says, "What's hardest for me to swallow is when there is a love story, say, with a really high-profile male star, and there's no reason I can't play the part. They say, 'Oh, we love Halle, we just don't want to go black with this part.' What enrages me is that those are such racist statements, but the people saying them don't think they are." If Halle wins the Best Actress Academy Award later this month, she would become the first black woman to win the gong. Berry also believes an Oscar would put her a step closer toward succeeding in her mission "to be an actress of color who can make a difference and go down a path that no woman has gone! before." Berry was named Best Actress at America's Screen Actor's Guild Awards on Sunday.

* Stunning actress Halle Berry broke down backstage after her triumph at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday night. The Revlon spokesmodel picked up Best Female Actor in a Leading Role, for her portrayal of prison widow Leticia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball at the star-studded bash. Gorgeous Halle was so overcome with emotion, she sobbed on the shoulder of several reporters. One journalist says, "I mean, she really cried. My shirt got wet, but hey, I'm not complaining." And Halle later bumped into fellow Hollywood star Angela Bassett giving her another shoulder to cry on. Both were heard shouting to each other, "I love you, girl." (Hope Berry bought the reporter a new shirt, I mean what was she thinking? – DR.SOTHA)

* Will Smith’s Best Actor nomination is a breakthrough for black actors, according to the ALI actor himself. Citing nominations for fellow black stars Denzel Washington and Halle Berry as well as his own, Smith believes the white dominated Academy Awards voting panels are finally beginning to recognise a broad spectrum of movie talent. He says, "If you go to a French film festival, French films are nominated and French actors are going to win. "The majority of the Academy are white Americans, and white American actors are going to win "The breakthrough is an acknowledgment of what the level of work truly is."

* Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jessy Raphael announced Monday that they will be quitting daytime television, Winfrey at the end of the 2005-2006 season, Raphael at the end of the current season. Although four more years will remain of Oprah analysts zeroed in on her departure announcement and shunted aside Raphael's even though the latter has been fronting her eponymous talk show for 19 years -- three years longer than Winfrey. (Referring to the cancellation of her show, Raphael told New York Post columnist Cindy Adams: "It's a shock.") "Oprah going off the air clearly will be a major moment in television," TV Guide editor Matt Roush told the BBC. "She's just so popular. She's become such an icon," Roush observed.

* Moving into front-running position for the Oscars, Russell Crowe and HALLE BERRY received best-actor and -actress statuettes Sunday at the Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremonies. Crowe received his for A Beautiful Mind; Berry, for Monster’s Ball. The cast of Robert Altman’s Gosford Park took the ensemble award, while the film's Helen Mirren won for best supporting actress. Ian McKellen won for best supporting actor for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings.

* Hollywood actor Denzel Washington has his mother to thank for his success in the movie world. The Oscar-winning star grew up in the New York area of Mount Vernon and says if it wasn't for the support of his mom, he might never have survived to find film fame. He says, "Of the three closest friends I had as a teenager, two are dead - one was murdered and one died of AIDS - and the other is still doing 25 years in prison. That was the environment I grew up in, and if it hadn't been for my mother I might have headed down that path myself." And his troubled past continues to act as a spur for the 47-year- old. He continues, "I've still got my unemployment book and I intend to keep it. I did all sorts of jobs in the early days. I worked as a garbage man, for the post office, in factories and I had the midnight shift at a record-processing plant. I remember what it was like to have $1 in my pocket. You don't forget that stuff." (I still remember those days like it was yesterday, or even today – DR.SOTHA)

* If nothing else, "Showtime," the Warner Bros. buddy-cop action-comedy opening today in 2,917 locations, should win a prize for its commitment to recycling. Starring the odd coupling of Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro as two L.A. cops who find themselves the stars of a reality TV cop show, the flick beckons like a variation on a familiar theme. Murphy, when he first broke on the scene, helped to revive the buddy action pic with his 1982 feature, "48 HRS.," playing a convict to Nick Nolte's cop. And he went on to up the ante on cop action comedies with his successful "Beverly Hills Cop" movies. De Niro, once the very epitome of the brooding method actor, morphed into a lighter vein with 1999's "Analyze This," where he parodied his "Godfather" persona, and went on to augment his comedy credentials as the stern taskmaster dad in 2000's "Meet the Parents." In fact, in recent years, De Niro's comic turns have drawn much larger audiences than his dramatic work. So even if the movie's premise isn't startlingly original, the first pairing of Murphy and De Niro should bring together their respective fan bases for an arresting opening

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT