Father Geek here returning once again to post the latest report from our African crew of editor/reporters on the state of film on the African Continent... Soooo here's SOTHA and Song...
DR.SOTHA here urging you all to support Nurse Hollis on Day 9 of her mission in South Korea. Ms. Hollis has tracked down the eel dragon’s location to a sewer beneath a classy brothel joint that charges by the quarter hour. Although Hollis found the brothel to be a sexist, lurid pig-sty, she did find the prices on the posted catalogue of services to be more than reasonable. Hollis is currently working an angle to get beneath the brothel and cleverly trap the eel dragon by way of anti-telepathic waves and smoldering Oleander leaves. Will Hollis’s mental mettle manage to outwit the dragon? Join us next week in our regular Africa-AICN column to find out.
To send Head Nurse Hollis "Papaya Leaves" as an alternative option to Oleander email us at my Secret Hothouse Hydroponic Labs Outside Cape Town and we’ll collect them all and deliver ASAP.
SOUTH AFRICA
* The industry was a-buzz at the weekend about a report in The Sunday Times that Anant Singh planned to build the country's biggest movie studio in the city (Cape Town). According to the report, Singh said the studio will be running within a year and will initially only acquire an investment of R20-million. He had apparently already convinced Universal Studios to shoot scenes for its war epic, Sahara, starring James Belushi and Patrick Stewart in Durban and the Northern Cape next year. The Singh studio report comes in the wake of an announcement about two months back that Anton Nel, a South African living in Los Angeles, had put together a consortium, including American partners, to develop a multi-million dollar studio in Cape Town. Two mammoth studios in South Africa are obviously out of the question. So now what?
* Nu Metro Home Entertainment announced that the local blockbuster ‘Mr. Bones’ – released on video and DVD for rental in mid-June – has become the record highest-grossing video rental title in South Africa. ‘Mr. Bones’ which grossed more than R32-million during its release has achieved a record number of more than 100000 video units and more than 30000 DVD units for rental in the first week of its release.
* Producer/ director Rehad Desai's film My Land My Life will have its African premier at the 4th Encounters Documentary Festival. Desai's film explores Zimbabwe's present and past through three characters, a war veteran, a farm labourer and a farmer. The film will be screened at Cinema Nouveau, V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on Thursday 25 and Saturday 27 July at 6pm and 4pm, respectively. In Johannesburg it can be seen at Cinema Nouveau, Rosebank on Monday 5 August at 6pm.
* South Africa’s REALVIZ(r), specializing in image processing software development, has announced that UK post-production and effects powerhouse, Framestore CFC, has utilized REALVIZ MatchMover(r) 2 in the company's completion of key scenes for the lavish Hallmark Entertainment miniseries, Dinotopia which aired in the US in May 2002 on ABC, and which is already scheduled for broadcast in many other markets, including the UK, France, Canada, Venezuela, Thailand, and Ireland. Dinotopia is the largest project of its kind ever undertaken. Drawing on an unprecedented range of resources - human and computer - Dinotopia marks Framestore CFC's most ambitious foray yet into televised creature animation. MatchMover is REALVIZ' award winning 3D match-moving application for seamlessly integrating CG elements into moving footage. Dinotopia is based on two books of the same name, by James Gurney. Directed by Marco Brambilla, the miniseries retains Gurney's vision of a fabulous kingdom where humans and dinosaurs have happily co-existed ! for thousands of years. The production, which took 18 months to complete, was the largest ever filmed at London's Pinewood Studios.
* A host of South Africa's leading creative talent was involved in a video production specially commissioned by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) for the launch of the African Union in Durban. The video was produced and directed by Feizel Mamdoo (What Happened to Mbuyisa?) and executive produced by Zola Maseko (The Foreigner / Sartjie Baartman). Well-known novelist Mandla Langa wrote the script. Catherine Meyburgh, editor of Yizo Yizo, cut the video which was shot by Eddie Wes. The voice-over artists were the popular actors, Keketso Somoto and John Matshikiza. Mamdoo describes the video as impressionistic rather than literal. "It gives pride of voice to a praise singer - as one of the people in African society who can very directly address senior leaders. The praise singer in the video is a mythical figure. She normally resides as a tree in another dimension and, is also a water spirit." The video follows the spirit as she begins a journey through important milestones in Africa's history (including the establishment of the Organisation for African Unity in 1963), until the launch of the African Union.
* No surprise to learn that the latest Star Wars saga - Episode 2: Attack of the Clones took R4 303 166 (about the price of a 2 in one shampoo and conditioner in North America – DR.SOTHA) in its first week at the South African box office and is in the number one position. The abstention comedy, Forty Days Forty Nights, is in second place. After seven weeks on release, Spiderman has grossed R20 178 055. It is currently in third spot, followed by A Walk To Remember and We Were Soldiers.
NORTH AFRICA
* It’s time for Rigobert Song:
Hello Readers, last week I reviewed two of the four Africa-Dreaming films in the series. Today I bring you the last 2, but as a pack of four the series develops a synergy of themes and issues that are current and relevant to a developing Africa. I urge you all to seek them out. You won’t be sorry. Remember to email me at rigobertsong@hotmail.com with your African film thoughts.
So Be It (Senegal)
Produced, Written and Directed by Joseph Gai Ramaka - In French and Wolof with English subtitles
Based on a play by Wolé Soyinka, The Strong Breed, So Be It offers an emotionally searing allegory of present day Africa's bloody internecine convulsions. Michael, an idealistic foreign doctor, (played by Martinican star, Alex Descas) has had little success bringing the promises of modernity to a dusty village of the damned in the Sahel. His lover, Sunma, a teacher and native of the place, has no illusions about the village, "a world which will cannibalize its children" (according to a Wolof incantation) in a futile effort to compensate for human powerlessness. She simply wants to live and love - and leave before the killing starts. But Michael seems transfixed; he stays and tries, ineffectively, to prevent the villagers from sacrificing a mentally disturbed mute boy he has befriended. Perhaps Michael sees in himself, even in his hope for scientific progress, a reflection of the villagers' own horror at h! uman fate. Director, Gai Ramaka, has described the origins of this African Heart of Darkness: "I had to make this film to exorcize the terror of this continent, trapped inside me and driving me, so that on that day I will not be able to say, ÎI did not know.'"
The Gaze of the Stars (Mozambique)
Directed by Jọo Ribeiro РProduced by Pedro Pimenta - In Portuguese with English subtitles
At the center of this story is a woman, a woman felt, however, only by her absence, in other words a dream of a woman, perhaps even the lost dreams for a post-independence Mozambique. Salomão owns a bar in Maputo, still down at the heels after the civil war, where the local machos drink and talk of soccer and women. He rather gruffly takes care of his adopted nephew, Betinho, a war orphan. Some years before, a young woman, Julia, left him because he refused to let her work or study outside the house. Instead, she married Saide, the man next door. Nothing has been heard from her for months except the sound of constant wife-beating inside Saide's house. Finally Salomão decides to put a stop to the beatings only to discover that Julia left Saide long ago because he kept blaming her for his own sterility. The mock beatings were his pathetic way of convincing the world he still had a wife.! In this wry but pessimistic film, the men sense their machismo has driven away what they most desired but lack the strength to change. Salomão explains to Betinho that they are like the stars, cursed to look for their lost dream forever
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* Samuel L. Jackson took over the home of the Oscars last night to host the 10th annual ESPY Awards in Hollywood. But in addition to paying homage to the past year's American sporting achievements, the Pulp Fiction star was out to have some fun. The movie star recreated his most famous roles from Star Wars, Pulp Fiction and Shaft in a series of hilarious short films where he pretended his characters had once been sporting coaches to future legends like Derek Jeter and Shaquille O'Neal. Jackson also popped up in clips from a handful of great sporting films, including Jerry Maguire, Rocky, Chariots of Fire and Raging Bull, in which he beat up Robert De Niro with a baseball bat. The actor rounded off his ! night by dueting with Snoop Dogg on a rousing version of P-Funk's "We Got The Funk." Elsewhere in the show, Dennis Quaid’s The Rookie beat Ali to claim the first ever Best Sports Movie award; Tiger Woods claimed the Best Male Athlete award and Venus Williams claimed the Best Female Athlete prize. The Los Angeles Lakers claimed the Best Team honor.
* Pop king Michael Jackson lashed out at the music industry's treatment of black artists - including himself - in an appearance Saturday with the Reverend Al Sharpton. The 42-year-old singer is engaged in a vicious battle with record label Sony over their alleged underpromotion of his latest album Invincible, and an apparent refusal to release a charity record he recorded after the September 11 terror attacks. Jackson addressed an adoring crowd of about 350 inside Sharpton's National Action Network headquarters in Harlem, New York, and singled out Sony boss Tommy Mottola for criticism. He said, "The record companies really do conspire against the artists. Especially the black artists. When you fight for me, you're fighting for all black people, dead and alive." A Sony spokesman says Jackson's comments are "ludicrous, spiteful and hurt! ful," and adds, "It seems particularly bizarre that he has chosen to launch an unwarranted and ugly attack on an executive who has championed his career, and the careers of so many other superstars, for many years."
DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT
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