Father Geek here with another Friday's worth of Africa-AICN from the South African offices of Dr. SOTHA, Rigobert Song and their two dozen specialist nurses. As usual the Doc's got the cure for Africaicus Filmphobia, that epidemic that attacks the ability to see, or hear clearly motion pictures made in, about, or starring people from the continent of Africa. It appears to be especially widespread in North America and our good doctor is determined to wipe it out in our lifetime. So here he is with this weeks dose of medicine...

Got a fetish for flesh, well jump on the Africa-AICN medical bandwagon with
me, DR.SOTHA your host for another Friday of news, reflections and filmic
hemorrhaging.

Please send all your biological conspiracies to Africaaicn@hotmail.com and
I'll try and wipe out the amoeba's responsible.

Nurse, don't get up.

SOUTH AFRICA

* Caught this interview that our Charlize gave not too long ago -
interesting stuff, here's some selected excerpts. Robert Redford who
directed her in "The Legend of Bagger Vance" says "She has all the elements,
I think, of what creates a lasting actress, she's ambitious, she's got
looks, she's talented, intelligent, fiercely tough on herself without
letting the insecurity dominate. And she has courage; that's an additional
thing.She's easily stereotyped as the very attractive model/dancer, but
there was such emotional range in what I saw of her work that I took the
bet, and I'm extremely pleased with what she did. This was a hard role, and
she had the determination to pull it off."

"Charlize Theron knows about determination. She grew up on a farm in Benoni,
a small town outside Johannesburg, where she planned on escaping the daily
grind of cow milking and muckraking by becoming a dancer. Although she
continues to have a wonderfully close relationship with her mother, Gerda,
her father was a troubled, abusive alcoholic. When Charlize was fifteen, he
attacked her mother in a drunken rage, who, in return, shot and killed him.
Her act was ruled self-defense and Theron's mother was never charged. From
then on, Theron had to help her mother run the family business, and she saw
how much her father had hidden about the firm's financial difficulties.

"You think everything is great, and you realize you have nothing. There are
all these secrets," she says. "The bank was after her and said, 'You have to
sell; you have too much debt.' She proved everyone wrong." Although Charlize
considered it a joke at first, her mother entered her in a modelling
competition at sixteen. Theron won in Johannesburg, then won the
International New Model Today competition in Italy. "I didn't take it so
seriously that if rejection came my way I couldn't handle it," she recalls.
"It's a very, very harsh industry, and it wasn't so important to me if
someone said, 'You're too fat; you won't get that job.' Charlize bought a
one-way ticket to Hollywood in 1994 and was "discovered" when a Los Angeles
bank clerk refused to cash her check and she threw "a little tantrum," as
she puts it. This tantrum was witnessed by talent manager, John Crosby, who
also represents Rene Russo and John Hurt. He called this screaming,
arm-waving tantrum- thrower a "vision" and said to her: "I don't know what
you do, but if you're interested in acting, here's my card."

With no money or job, she set out to shed her South African accent by
watching hours of television and singing along to American songs on the
radio. Soon after, she acquired her first acting job, 'Two Days in the
Valley,' which was followed by the Tom Hanks-directed 'That Thing You Do'.
"She's got it!" said Hanks at the time. "That girl is going to be somebody."
Today a somebody at last, Charlize shares her Hollywood Hills house with her
boyfriend of a few years, rocker Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind.

Q: How hard has it been for you as a foreigner in Hollywood?

THERON: I love the fact that I'm a foreigner. I love that I am perceived as
different. I'm sure it's helped with my career. With each passing year,
though, I feel more and more at home in America. (Just remember you're South
African first! - DR. SOTHA)

Q: How much more famous would you like to be?

THERON: The greater your celebrity, the greater the intrusions
into your privacy. There are things people shouldn't be required to deal
with publicly just because they are celebrities. I went to France to promote
The Devil's Advocate with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. It was a madhouse. I'd
never seen anything like it. Cars would block our vehicles off and make us
walk, so the paparazzi could get photos. Al's car got lost one day trying to
get away. He told me if he had known what his life would be like today, he'd
never have become an actor. I'm certainly not at that point yet and I hope
it never happens.

Q: You were raised on a farm near a tiny village outside of Johannesburg.
What was your childhood like?

THERON: It was the kind of village where kids rode donkeys to school (Can I
just say that this is simply not true - we use goats now - DR. SOTHA). My
best friend was my pet goat named Bok. I was the kind of child who had
incredible dreams. I'd want to be a guitar player and then dancer and always
my mother would try to accommodate those dreams.

Q: How do you feel about being from South Africa?

THERON: My native language is Afrikaans. I try to speak English in a neutral
way, but not so people will think I'm American. I've always been proud of
being South African. Like any South African, I have big dreams and big hopes
for the country's future.

Q: Last year you started a controversy in your homeland by appearing in a TV
commercial calling attention to the country's shockingly high rape
statistics.

THERON: South Africa is the rape capital of the world and there is untold
violence toward women and children. The government refuses to acknowledge
the problem, so it is up to celebrities to speak out. But the first time
someone stands up and says
something about rape in South Africa, 28 men complained, and the ad got
pulled. It was very strange.

Q: You've appeared nude in several films already. How do you feel about
nudity in films?

THERON: Nudity in movies, if used properly, is extremely powerful (You don't
say - DR. SOTHA). I think of myself as a very sexual creature. I didn't grow
up with a mother who told me what I had under my clothes was bad or evil.
Perhaps that's why I'm less intimidated by nudity than many people.

Q: You are considered to be extremely beautiful. How do you see yourself?

THERON: I never thought of myself as this exquisite thing. Like any human
being I see the flaws in myself - crooked teeth, pigmentation, a round face
- if I gain weight it goes right there. But I learned early on, the less you
try the more your better qualities will come through.

Q: What are your best recollections as a model?

THERON: I only ever modelled as a means to an end. I hated every minute of
it. My first modelling job got me from South Africa to Milan and it
eventually got me to America. It was great to have
all that independence and I loved learning about designer clothes like
Armani, but coming from dance, where the discipline was about needing to
dance eight hours a day, suddenly I was thrown into this career where the
discipline was about what I eat. That whole mentality of 'Lose five pounds
and you'll be a superstar' was not something I ever wanted to strive for.

Q: Are you aware that there are rumor-mongers in Hollywood who say that you
are gay?

THERON: I know a lot of people have said that they think I'm a lesbian (Not
that that's a bad thing everybody - DR. SOTHA). I think people make that
connection when I make a comment about another woman, 'What an amazing ass,'
or 'Look at those legs.' I do really appreciate a beautiful face. I can
appreciate it, but it's not a turn on to me. I don't know; maybe I should be
turned on. But I've always loved men.

Q: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

THERON: The greatest advice I've ever got in my life was to never do what
people expect you to do. I've always been told 'No,' and that just flicks a
fire in me and makes me want to burn everything down. It's good when people
tell you no, I guess.

Q: You seem remarkably strong and centered. Is there anything that could
unnerve you?

THERON: The way I was raised, that I'm not an American, that I had every
single odd against me - not speaking the language and having to transform
myself into an American, because that's where the core of the industry
really is - the fact that I was a model-turned-actress, that I'm beautiful
and blonde and dumb and could never be taken seriously. Having gone through
all of that in the last five years of my life, nothing scares me anymore
(What about the prospect of again acting opposite Keanu? - DR. SOTHA).

This Article is courtesy of killerfeatures.com ...

* THE GREAT DANCE: A HUNTER'S STORY is the second most successful
documentary feature ever to be released on the South African cinema circuit,
according to distributor SterKinekor. This local production was released at
Cinema Nouveau Rosebank (Johannesburg) in October this year. The only other
documentary feature which opened bigger on the local cinema circuit was the
foreign-language film, Buena Vista Social Club which was released with 2
prints in South Africa. The Great Dance was released with only 1 print. Its
gross was reached in less than 6 weeks and improved on the life-time grosses
being set by other documentaries, such as "Mobuto: King Of Zaire",
Oscar-winner "The Last Days", "Mandelaand" and "Kurt & Courtney". Earlier
this year when The Great Dance walked off with 3 prestigious Panda Awards
and 2 nominations from the WildScreen 2000 Awards Ceremony (the "Oscars" of
Natural History filmmaking). It won the WWF Golden Panda Award for "Best
Film" against steep competition, including the BBC/Discovery Channel's
"Walking with Dinosaurs" and Sir David Attenborough's Life of Birds.The
Great Dance, voiced by Sello Maake Ka-Ncube from TV's "Generations", is the
first film ever to be fully supported by WIMSA (Working Group of Indigenous
Minorities In Southern Africa). It deals with the unique relationship
between the San people of the Kalahari and their environment, seen through
the experience of hunting and tracking. Specially adapted mini-cam
technology and never- before-seen footage of the death defying 'chasing
hunt' makes the film unique and remarkable. It was directed and photographed
by brothers Craig and Damon Foster of Cape Town, executive produced by James
Hersov and produced by Ellen Windemuth, with a script by Jeremy Evans, music
by Barry Donnelly and sound recording / additional photography by Teo
Bielefeld. "The Great Dance" is an Aardvark/Earthrise/Liquid Pictures/Off
the Fence production co-produced with KirchMedia, e.tv and Primedia
Pictures.

* Sad though this is Coyote Ugly remains at the top of the South African box
office in its fourth week of release, having amassed R5 959 250 to date. It
is followed by the "new" release The Replacements, which is ahead of The
Cell, The Kid and What Lies Beneath. (Woe is the state of the South African
Box Office - DR. SOTHA)

NORTH AFRICA

* Features and documentaries coming from Algeria, Australia, Chad, Congo,
the USA and Zimbabwe amongst others will be premiered at the 8th annual
Contemporary African Diaspora Film Festival which opens in Brooklyn, New
York on Friday, 24 November. The festival will open with the U.S. premiere
of OTOMO, directed by German Frieder Schlaich, a 2000 Rotterdam competition
entry and winner of the 2000 Vancouver Film Festival's Diversity in Spirit
Award. Otomo is part of a retrospective of actor Isaach de Bankole, who also
appears in several festival selections, including Ghost Dog (Jim Jarmusch),
The Keeper (Joe Brewster), and the U.S. premiere of Senegalese filmmaker
Cheick Oumar Sissoko's latest film BATTU, a satire co-starring Danny Glover.
The "godfather of modern black cinema," and creator of the 1971 hit "Sweet
Sweetback's Baadasssss Song", Melvin Van Peebles will also premiere his new
film A BELLYFUL (Un Conte due Ventre Plein) at the festival. The DV-shot
French-language fable follows the exploits of a middle age white couple who
adopt a young black orphan girl for dubious reasons. The festival also
includes special programmes and panels celebrating Brazilian and Egyptian
cinema, black images in Canadian cinema, the Afro-Latino experience and the
work of black women directors.

* Ladies and Gentleman (drum roll) (beat) (pause) Rigobert Song

Hello friends, foes, and inbetweeners, I have a wonderfully absorbing
documentary for everyone today. A prize winner at this years Sundance Film
Festival "Long Night's Journey Into Day" For over forty years, South Africa
was governed by the most notorious form of racial domination since Nazi
Germany. When it finally collapsed, those who had enforced apartheid's rule
wanted amnesty for their crimes. Their victims wanted justice. As a
compromise, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed. As it
investigated the crimes of apartheid, the Commission brought together
victims and perpetrators to relive South Africa's brutal history. By
revealing the past instead of burying it, the TRC hoped to pave the way to a
peaceful future, hoped.

Long Night's Journey Into Day, winner of the Grand Prize for Best
Documentary at the 2000 Sundance Festival, follows several TRC cases over a
two-year period. The stories in the film underscore the universal themes of
conflict, forgiveness, and renewal. A white special forces officer,
struggles to reach peace with the embittered wife of a black activist he
killed 14 years before. A group of mothers, after enduring years of
misinformation and denials by the authorities, learn the truth about how
their sons were set up, betrayed and killed in a vicious police conspiracy.
A liberation movement combatant who blew up a bar frequented by the security
police expresses his remorse about the civilians killed, but the sister of a
victim remains doubtful. A young black activist comes to recognize the
anguish he caused by killing a white American student during a mob riot,
while her parents see past their pain to embrace a new multi-racial South
Africa.

As it emerges from its tragedy, South Africa is showing the rest of the
world that even the most bitter of conflicts can be addressed through
honesty and communication. Long Night's Journey Into Day provides the
definitive record of one of the most ambitious and innovative attempts at
social reconciliation without precedent in human history. I realize this is
a short review, but I can't bring myself to say much else, except for this
is one of the most provocatively powerful documentary's I have ever seen.
Pure, raw and truthful, heaven help the weak. E-mail me at rigobertsong and
lets talk African Film.

* Thank AFRICA for Glenn Close. Africa saved actress Glenn Close from growing
up as a member of a cult. Her parents were devotees of conservative
salvationist organization Moral Re-Armament when she was a child - but she's
grateful her doctor father found his calling while working in The Congo.
Close, who spent time with her parents when she wasn't at boarding schools
in Switzerland and Connecticut remembers the change she saw in her parents.
She says, "My parents were very
idealistic and I think they were susceptible at a certain in their lives to
the allure of a group like that. The appeal as with any cult, was that,
after the war, many young people felt traumatised. Looking back as an adult,
I'm so proud of my parents, so in awe of them - they're great humanists, and
they broke away. The catalyst was
going to Africa, where my father saw what he was meant to do, which was to
be a doctor and help people. He was the only surgeon in the Congo for four
months during the mutiny. He stepped into his destiny there and he told the
group to go jump in the lake." (Unfortunately Africa doesn't always save
actresses from career doldrums ahem Kim Bassinger anyone? - DR. SOTHA)

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* Taken from the Hollywood Reporter.Since wrapping production on
"Rollerball" for MGM, director John McTiernan is in discussions to helm
action-thriller "The Extractors" for the studio. Samuel L. Jackson, who is
fielding offers after "Unbreakable," is being eyed to star. The project,
about a group of ex-cons who break prisoners out of jail for a price, is
being targeted for a March start date. The project would fit nicely into
Jackson's plans after Universal Pictures' "Truck 44" was pushed back.
Preproduction on the Hyde Park Entertainment/Cheyenne Enterprises project
could start next month. "It's way too early and nothing may happen at all,"
said an MGM spokesperson. "Extractors" writers Kevin Fox and James DeMonaco
also wrote the Jackson starrer "The Negotiator," which Hyde Park's David
Hoberman produced.

* Jim Caviezel is set to star opposite Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman in New
Regency/20th Century Fox's thriller "High Crimes." The project begins
shooting this week in San Francisco and Los Angeles with Carl Franklin at
the helm. Based on the novel of the same name by Joseph Finder, "Crimes" is
the story of a high-powered criminal defense attorney (Judd) who must defend
her husband (Caviezel) after he is arrested by a team of government agents
and accused of a 12-year-old wartime atrocity he insists he didn't commit.
She enlists the help of a former military attorney (Freeman) but then begins
to doubt her husband's innocence. Amanda Peet is featured in the project as
Judd's younger sister.

* Chris Rock is wrapping up the four-year run of his Emmy-winning HBO
late-night talk show with Friday's season finale, HBO confirmed Tuesday.
Chris Albrecht, HBO's president of original programming, said in a statement
that Rock had a great run with "The Chris Rock Show," which earned four
consecutive Emmy nominations for best variety or musical series since its
premiere in 1997. Rock and his writing team won the Emmy last year for
writing for a variety or musical series. Guests set for Friday's final
installment include rapper-actor Ice-T and singer Nikka Costa. Although he
is signing off as host of a regular HBO series, Rock is sure to maintain a
high profile on the pay TV network. His most recent HBO comedy special,
1999's "Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker," also yielded an Emmy nomination
this year.

* American star Michael Clarke Duncan has praised the make-up artist on his
latest movie - even though he is forced to spend three and a half hours in
the makeup chair. The larger-than-life actor has been so impressed with
Planet of the Apes makeup man Rick Baker'S "phenomenal" job, he doesn't mind
spending time being covered in latex. Baker, who also worked with Jim Carrey
for five-hours-a-day while making How the Grinch Stole Christmas, has won
five academy awards for his work. The beefy actor says, "He has us looking
so real you will not believe this." Duncan is in awe of the style of the
film's director Tim Burton, and can't believe he will be working with him on
the five month shoot. He says, "You know it's going to be good because of
Burton's involvement. I think Tim is going to add his own little special
spin to it because Tim isn't a typical director. He's really crazy looking
and he gets all animated and I think this is going to be a fun shoot." The
movie itself features Duncan alongside Mark Wahlberg, although as Duncan
points out, "he doesn't have to get any make- up!"

* A bit of light relief from Mr. Cosby--Comedian Bill Cosby has entered into
the political arena -by making his opinions about the ongoing presidential
saga known. Cosby, one of the world's highest paid entertainers, had
television audiences in stitches with his latest gag concerning the
gaff-prone elections. He says, "Thank God the media weren't there to report
the birth of Christ. "I can just imagine what they would have written -
Bethlehem, Dec 25, 00 A.D., baby born to Mary and Joseph - it's a girl!"

AFRICAN COAXIAL

* Filminafrica.com , the independent portal for the South African film and
television industry, has just been selected Site of The Week on
www.iafrica.com. In addition, the portal has recorded 100,000 hits thus far.
Forty seven percent of all hits are international - the top country being
the USA, followed by UK, France, Australia, The Netherlands, Canada and
Germany.

Sadly, we have reached the end of another week in African film (I can hear
the sighs in Nairobi).

If you feel you can't wait until next Friday then send my team of crack nurses
your microscopic tools to my operating room , and I'll have them closely
examine it.

DR.SOTHA OUT