Father Geek here with our crew from Africa-AICN and their column for this week. Between the Road Runner E-mail shutdown and the SXSW film/interactive/music festival I was not able to post last week's column, alas I never even received it, but never fear loyal readers our good Dr. SOTHA as a really nice one for you this weekend, so sit back, read, and enjoy the news from our Capetown office...

I understand that Fathergeek was having some difficulties receiving e-mail
over the passed week. Allow me to sympathize, because here at DR.SOTHA's
lab, the chain of communication has been breached on several occasions by
some 'inadequate' nursing protocol. Take an example, Nurse Hollis, instead
of leaving my messages on my desk, decided to use her brain (despite me
telling her not to), and memorized each message by heart. As a result the
messages have taken on a subversive and carnal significance. I now have to
reverse a transsexual operation, re-adjust an Adam's apple, and patch-up a
nostril incision.

Send me your nurse's resume to Africaaicn@hotmail.com for a new and
thrilling position.

Nurse Hollis, you're going down.

SOUTH AFRICA

Taken from ScreenAfrica.com

* Established South African director David Lister is to direct OLLIE, the
first of UK company Peakviewing Transatlantic's films to be shot in South
Africa this year. Written by former South African scriptwriter John Cundill
(The Villagers), the film stars Oscar winner Marlee Matilin as a passionate
conservationist. South Africans Ian Roberts and Ken Gampu co-star. Ollie is
about the bond between human and elephant and the clash between
conservationism and maintainable eco tourism. Principal photography
commences on 26 March.

* The recent South African / Hollywood MediaXchange 2001 saw a delegation of
high level South African producers meet with 18 top players in Hollywood,
including Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., William Morris, Fox 2000 and
Intermedia. Making up the South African group were Moonlighting Filmmakers'
Philip Key, Eddie Mbalo from the National Film & Video Foundation (NFVF),
Desiree Markgraaff from BOMB, Film Afrika's David Wicht, and Firdoze
Bulbulia who represented the Gauteng Film Office. One of the most successful
meetings reportedly was with Peter Guber at Mandalay Pictures whose recent
producer credits include "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Donnie
Brasco." The London, US-based MediaXchange has a long established
partnership in South Africa between Katrina Wood and South African marketer
to the entertainment industry, Dezi Rorich.

* Top South African rock band, Springbok Nude Girls has signed up to play
at12th annual Splashy Fen Music Festival, which takes place from April 26 to
29 in Underberg in the southern Drakensberg. Hailed as one of the country's
most wanted bands, the Nude Girls have played alongside the likes of Lenny
Kravitz, Goo Goo Dolls, Fetish and The Cult as well as Yous N'Dour, Johnny
Clegg and Hot House Flowers amongst others. Another band which has signed up
for Splashy Fen is Saron Gas. Formed in May 1999 - Saron Gas emerged onto
the South African rock scene and rapidly established itself as one of South
Africa's top emerging bands.

* Presented by Humphrey Barclay, fondly known as the UK's 'King of Comedy',
a Master Class workshop organised by SASWA (South African Scriptwriters
Association) was held in Johannesburg last week. Seventy-seven of the city's
top comedy talents, writers, producers, stand-up comics and broadcasters
attended. Having worked in the UK, America and Australia, Barclay gave
participants insight into the state of play in the international arena. This
enabled him to speak with both authority and understanding about the local
dilemma of producing sitcoms for the South African market. One key problem
was identified: local broadcasters have to ensure that local sitcoms get
sufficient budgets to be able to develop scripts before they are shot.
Barclay will repeat the Master Class in Cape Town from Friday 16 to Sunday
18 March. Contact SASWA on saswa@global.co.za

* And now for a bit of comedy - let me present the South African Box Office:
One of this year's Best Film Oscar contenders, Chocolat (starring Juliette
Binoche), has made it to the number four position at the South African box
office in its first week of release. Still at the top is "What Women Want",
followed by "Cast Away" and "Pay It Forward". These three films all star
Helen Hunt which makes one wonder if there are no other American actress
around at the moment (Note: I just post this stuff - that's all - DR.SOTHA).
At the number five spot is another new release, the Jason Bigg's comedy,
"Loser" (You don't say - DR.SOTHA.)

NORTH AFRICA

* "Ali Zaoua", by the Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch, won the Yennenga
Stallion trophy, for Best Film, at the 17th edition of Fespaco, the pan
African festival of film and television of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) on
Saturday, 3 March 2001. Second winner was "Sia, the Dream of the Python", by
the Burkinabe cineaste, Dany Kouyate. It also received the Special Jury
Prize for a feature film in competition at Fespaco. The young Nigerian
filmmaker, "Newton Aduaka", won the third prize in the feature film category
for "Rage", as well as the Oumarou Ganda Most Promising Newcomer category.
"Aduaka" will receive assistance for distribution in the form of a one
million CFA franc ($1 400) award from the French-speaking commonwealth
organisation, La Francophonie. The special Paul Robeson prize at Fespaco for
the Best Feature film from the diaspora, went to the Haitian filmmaker,
Raoul Peck, for "Lumumba". Burkinabe filmmaker, Fanta Regina Nacro, was
honored with the Special Jury Prize in the short film category for "Bintou."

* Kelly Hu (CBS' "Martial Law") has been cast as the female lead in
Universal Pictures' "The Scorpion King" for director Chuck Russell. The
project is scheduled to start shooting Wednesday in Los Angeles. "Scorpion"
is a spinoff based on the character the Scorpion King, played by World
Wrestling Federation star the Rock, in "The Mummy Returns." The story
centers on how the Scorpion King came to conquer EGYPT. The character starts
as a heroic peasant who defeats his enemies and overcomes huge obstacles to
become the first pharaoh of EGYPT. Hu, who is skilled in karate and
kickboxing, will play Cassandra, a prisoner of the evil Warlord, whom the
Scorpion King must defeat. Her relationship with the Scorpion King evolves
eventually to a love interest.

* Rigobert Song for your pleasure:

I have 2 more television shows to round out the coverage of top African
small screen attractions. They're both different in tone and thematic
content, but hopefully with the variety I've presented, First World simians
will have a general understanding of the potential outbreak of one or more
of these.

LOCAL VOTER

Local Voter explores an innovative approach to voter education and was
telecast in preparation for the first local elections in which black South
Africans participated, November 5, 1995. I've selected a 10 minute excerpt
from this relentlessly upbeat but commendable "game show" format program
broadcast from Soweto. It intersperses questions to the three contestants
with brief video inserts explaining the structure of local government and
stakes behind the elections. Believe it or not, they've managed to make a
pivotal political election, into an entertaining way of participating and
educating the largely ignorant voters. Imagine, a few months back, if a game
show with three contestants were asked questions about the Gore/Bush
election, with the grand prize (probably a toaster or something lavish),
going to the person who predicted a landslide winner (theoretically
speaking). The prize or toaster in question would then be handed out after
the election. Obviously, this can only work around a political event, but it
does put a spin on the mindless gameshow, by incorporating real and current
issues floating around at that particular point in the public
consciousness.

RHYTHM AND RIGHTS

Rhythm and Rights is the name of a fictional "call-in program" at a
community radio station where listeners discuss whether their rights have
expanded in post-apartheid South Africa. The program also draws attention to
the new, under-funded community radio sector which was recognised, alongside
public and commercial broadcasting, as a key component of a democratic media
policy. In this program, the staff, a cross-section of the township
population from old socialist revolutionaries to upwardly mobile executives,
decides to do a show on "labor rights to deal with unemployment ö as high as
50% according to some estimates. Can private enterprise, they ask, be relied
upon to resolve this massive problem? Okay, so this largely focuses on
education as opposed to entertainment, but if you can get passed the rigid
format, it does have some attractive quirks. Basically, it poses the
question of what if to the African community, and allows them to find their
own voice, in putting suggestions forward to the people that count. It also
melds t.v. and radio together in an interesting and slyly observed package
of 'issues' and 'cultures'. That's my wrap on 'television in Africa', if
there's something you've seen on the small screen in Africa, and want me to
take a look at it, please e-mail me at rigobertsong@hotmail.com Next week
I'll be back to African film, digesting a few current releases that might be
on their way to your theater.

AFRICAN AMERICAN

Taken from the Hollywoodreporter:

* Rap impresario Sean "Puffy" Combs was acquitted Friday of toting an
illegal handgun into a crowded Manhattan hip-hop club by a jury that
believed the Grammy-winning multimillionaire's repeated claim of innocence.
He was also cleared of a bribery charge. When the verdict was read, Combs
and his attorneys hugged tightly, with lawyers Benjamin Brafman and Johnnie
Cochran burying their heads against Comb's shoulder. Combs' bodyguard,
Anthony "Wolf" Jones, was acquitted of the same charges as Combs. Rapper
Jamaal "Shyne" Barrow, a Combs protege who had been charged with attempted
murder, was instead convicted of two counts of assault in connection with
the shooting of two people in the club following a scuffle
involving the Combs entourage in the early morning hours of Dec. 27, 1999.
It was a stunning victory for Combs, 31, who presides over a $300 million
empire -- Bad Boy Entertainment -- that encompasses music, movies, clothing
and restaurants. He founded the company just seven years ago. The
high-profile trial stretched nearly seven weeks, with jurors hearing from 59
witnesses and examining more than 130 pieces of evidence. Combs dressed in a
conservative dark suit each day of the trial and his mother was in the
gallery behind him. Combs was the key defense witness, spending a full day
testifying that he never carried a weapon on the night of his arrest and
instead thought he was the target. "I thought I was being shot at," Combs
told the jury.

* Gary Anthony Williams (Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle") and Neil Patrick
Harris ("Starship Troopers") have been cast in Imagine
Entertainment/Universal Pictures' live-action comedy feature "Undercover
Brother" for helmer Malcolm Lee. "Brother" is based on an animated comedy
series created, written and produced by John Ridley (U-Turn) on Urban
Entertainment's Web site, www.urbanentertainment.com. Ridley wrote the
script and is executive producing the project, which follows a man (Eddie
Griffin) who, though he appears harmless, secretly works for the all-black
brotherhood in its never-ending battle against the white Establishment.
Williams, who voices many of the characters on the Web site's animated
series, has been cast as Smart Brother, the resident brain of the
brotherhood who is a walking encyclopedia constantly calculating the white
Establishment's latest plots. Harris will play Lance, the brotherhood's
token white man, hired because of affirmative action, who later becomes
enlightened when he watches "Roots." Comedian Dave Chappelle ("Blue Streak")
has also joined the cast. He will play Conspiracy Brother, an intense secret
agent who finds conspiracies in the most outlandish things.

* The producers of NBC's Friends, under fire for their failure to feature
minority actors, have hired Gabrielle Union, costar of last year's
box-office hit Bring It On and a onetime regular on the defunct TV series
"City of Angels", for an upcoming guest appearance. In an interview for TV
Guide Online, Union remarked, "the good thing is that [the producers] are
trying by hiring me. Their color-blind casting shows me that they are
attempting to make an effort towards diversity." Gabrielle is set to become
part of a love triangle with David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc. Gabrielle
Union, who has picked up a large following after her role in Bring It On,
will come between buddies Joey Tribiani and Ross Geller. Gabrielle says,
"I'm this random girl that they both find attractive and I date both of
them, unbeknownst to the other."

* Rapper-actor Pras toplines the low-budget indie comedy feature "Go for
Broke" for Jean Claude La Marre, who directs from his own script and will
take a role in the project. Principal photography started Monday in and
around Los Angeles. Pras stars alongside Michael Goorjian ("SLC Punk!") and
LisaRaye in the story of a pair of loser best friends (Pras and Goorjian)
who find themselves in a heap of gambling debt. Miraculously, they purchase
a winning lottery ticket, only to have it stolen by a woman (LisaRaye) while
she is robbing the burger joint in which they are eating. Singer Bobby
Brown, Glenn Plummer and Ed Lauter round out the cast. Full story

* Bai Ling ("Anna and the King") and rapper-actor Treach (HBO's "Oz") of the
hip-hop outfit Naughty by Nature will star in the indie drama "Face" for
first-time feature helmer Bertha Bay-Sa Pan and New York-based Beech Hill
Films. The low-budget feature "Face" centers on three generations of Chinese
women caught between the conflicting cultures of their homeland and the
influence of life in America. Ling stars as a young woman who is forced into
marriage and subsequently chooses to leave her infant daughter in her
mother's care in New York. Years later, she returns to find her independent
daughter involved in a relationship with a black DJ (Treach), causing
controversy in her family.

* The Independent Feature Project/West Los Angeles Film Festival has
unspooled its picks for the 36 films to screen as part of the seventh annual
fest, scheduled to run April 20-28. The lineup includes 21 world premieres,
two North American premieres and three U.S. premieres. The closing-night
film, set for April 28 at the Directors Guild of America, will be Allison
Anders' "THINGS BEHIND THE SUN" starring Kim Dickens, Gabriel Mann, DON
CHEADLE and Eric Stoltz. The opening-night film, also to be shown at the
Directors Guild, has yet to be announced. Also not announced are three
centerpiece premieres. Screenings will take place at the Directors Guild,
Harmony Gold, Laemmle Sunset 5 and the Los Angeles Film School theaters.

If you have any information connected to the African film Industry, remember
to contact either me (DR.SOTHA) or Rigobert Song.

Hope you enjoyed our 40th edition of Africaaicn, we'll be back next week
with more.

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT