Father Geek here with Dr. SOTHA's Friday morning column Africa-AICN. Tucked away in the middle of this week's report is a real thought provoking piece by Sotha's steady commentator Rigobert Song on the film MORTU NEGA which is centered on the war for the independence of Guinea-Bissau and the assasination of its leader Amilcar Cabral back in the mid-1970's. Good stuff! Hope I get to see the flick some time.
DR. SOTHA here for more eclectic news and dystopian retrospection. Well we hear in Africa haven't been exposed to the whole reality television slash voyeurism concept, not yet anyway. But I was thinking during my "limb carnage" lecture at the School of Physical disrepute, what a great idea it would be if they put ten surgeons in a lone house on a deserted Island, and each week send in a diseased, highly lethal "thing". The surgeons get voted off by the public on the strength of the way they dealt with the "thing". You see where I'm getting at. This is a ratings goldmine. All my surgeon friends think so too. I wish I had more time to fully elaborate on the concept, but it's time for Africa-AICN.
E-mail me your musings on "Big Surgeon" at Africaaicn@hotmail.com
Nurse, NO! Having 10 lesbian nuns holed up in a ward room is not a better idea.
SOUTH AFRICA
* "Bit Part" is an urban gangster film set in the notoriously dangerous area of downtown Johannesburg. It follows 3 friends and hitmen who set out to finish their last job for a big crimelord, only to realize that they've all been set up to kill each other. Stefan Jacobs will direct from his own script, shooting will take place in Natal that will double as Johannesburg.
* After a set-up phase of over a year, the Gauteng Film Office (GFO) was launched in Johannesburg on 21 September. The GFO's main objectives are to promote South Africa as a film location and to facilitate productions in the Gauteng region. GFO is hoping to lure Hollywood into expanding their operations to Africa as an economical shooting venue.
* Johannesburg-based Do Productions is the South African producer of "Malunde", a feature film currently being shot in the country. Malunde has behind it the considerable investment of German company Traumwerk Productions. The film is scripted and directed by South African-born Stefanie Sycholts, and follows the relationship between a racist white Afrikaner and a young, bright black street kid on their journey into unchartered territories. (What's the pitch? A remake of Curly Sue in Africa - DR. SOTHA)
* Actress and star of pay-TV station M-Net's soap, Egoli - Place of Gold, Brumilda van Rensburg has been invited by High Commissioner Cheryl Carolus to perform the play Om 'goodbye' te sj at SA House in London. 2 - 6 October 2000. This forms part of the Celebrate South Africa Initiative. She has been approached by other UK theatrical productions, to play a role, and she is currently weighing up her options. Thanks to Rijkard.
* Hollow Man (wasn't Basic Instinct the highest grossing film in South Africa? I digress - DR. SOTHA) has retained its position at the top of the South African box office for a second week - it has grossed R2 600 567 to date. Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor 2 is in second place, followed by Keeping the Faith, Big Mommas House and U-571(proving that South Africa gets American movies quicker than any other country, a relatively quick 3 months - DR. SOTHA) .
NORTH AFRICA
* "Soul Food" (Showtime's weekly drama series) hunk Boris Kodjoe tells "Parade" magazine that offscreen his main interest is ERACE, a charity he began to fight racism. Kodjoe, who's mother is German and father is West African, says he's experienced racism from both sides of the coin because of parentage. The actor, 26, who plays the love interest of Nicole Ari Parker's character in "Soul Food" also discusses race on his website at this location .
* Sebastian Lousqe is prepping "Doopa" which is the name of an ancient artifice once found in Central Africa. "We track this mysterious artifice, that is said to hold uncompromising biblical powers through history until we reach modern day in the second act, where we find out who the current owners are, and what power motives they have for the world" said Lousqe. "It's sort of a riff on Alan Quartemain adventure stories set within Africa and with African actors". It will be co-produced between Lousqe's own company: The Rylder and Sante Films. Most of the film will be shot on various locations in Central, and Western Africa with a budget of around 3m
* I now present to you Rigobert Song..
Hello readers, allow me to introduce you to the wonders of a film called "Mortu Nega" (Those Whom DeathRefused) 1998 marked both the 25th anniversary of the independence of Guinea-Bissau and the assasination of its leader Amilcar Cabral but it was also the year that country virtually annihilated itself in a brutal civil war. Produced in 1988 near the midpoint of these dates, Mortu Nega, as its title implies, is a unique kind of elegy - not so much to the victims of the liberation struggle as to its survivors. Like the Zimbabwean film Flame (1996) and Gomes' own more disillusioned second feature Udju Azul di Yonta (1991) (which I've reviewed before on the column), it is a bittersweet eulogy to those veterans who gave so much yet often benefited so little from the struggle. The film poses a question facing much of Africa at the start of the 21st century: with the goal of independence achieved, what can serve as an equally unifying and compelling vision around which to construct a new society? Or as Chris Marker observed in his 1980 documentary San Soleil, coincidentally contemplating the decay of Guinea-Bissau's revolution: "What every revolutionary thinks the morning after victory: now the real problems begin."
Mortu Nega covers the period from January 1973 during the closing months of the war against the Portuguese until the consolidation of an independent Guinea-Bissau in 1974 and 1975. This tiny West African nation's valiant struggle and eventual triumph over 500 years of Portuguese domination attracted international support and heralded the final anti-colonial wave culminating in the defeat of apartheid in 1994. The revolution's charismatic leader, the Cape Verdean agronomist, Amilcar Cabral, was assassinated on the eve of victory in January 1973 by Portuguese assisted mainland nationalists. The fragile union between Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde islands itself was finally dissolved in a bloodless military coup in 1980 led by an old guerilla commander, the present president, João Bernardo Vieira. When the post-revolutionary generation in the military and the population as a whole began to oppose Vieira's increasingly kleptocratic regime, he called in troops from Senegal and Guinea (Conakry) resulting in the carnage of June, 1998.
Mortu Nega can be divided into three "movements" each with a style reflecting a distinct stage in the revolutionary process. The film begins mysteriously someplace in the bush on the supply road from Conakry to the front. A convoy weaves its way through tall grasses camouflaging itself like Mao's "fish in the sea." Gomes' portrayal of guerilla war is one of the most accurate on film, capturing its tedium, terror and heroism, its rhythm of fragile silences broken by helicopter fire from above or exploding landmines from below (picture Platoon on an African landscape). In this war of attrition with the Portuguese, the exhausted militants press forward along a unclear, even circuitous path, directed only by their vision of a free Guinea-Bissau. Throughout this section, the emphasis is on the group over the individual.
Only after five minutes, does a heroine, Diminga, emerge and the story of her unflagging loyalty to her husband, Sako, a wounded guerilla commander, serves to underline the sense of solidarity developed among the freedom fighters. After demobilization, the veterans return to a world with very different values, the static world of village life, where people are divided by property and self-interest, where commerce takes the place of camaraderie. It seems ironic that now that the revolution has reached its destination it has lost its sense of direction. A drought descends on the country, perhaps symbolizing the drying up of revolutionary fervor. Sako's old war wound turns gangrenous, just as the body politic has become diseased. He ruefully observes that during war his feet carried him across the country but in peace he can't make his way across his yard. Gomes dramatizes the two paths the revolution can take when Sako is taken to Bissau for treatment and asks Diminga to seek the help of two old comrades. One, a pipe-smoking bureaucrat, fears he's being asked for money and pretends not to recognize Sako's name; the other unhesitatingly puts himself, his car and driver at his old comrade's disposal. The revolution must evolve. In the third movement, the film abandons the world of history for that of myth; the long march of war and the halting steps of national development are transformed literally into dance. Diminga has a prophetic dream which is interpreted to mean that the drought can only be lifted through the "beckoning of the ancestors." Here Gomes, as the PAIGC itself frequently did, adapts to political purposes a traditional religious ritual, the invocation of Djon Cago, a deity of the Balanta people, Guinea-Bissau's largest ethnic group inhabiting the rice growing region south of the Geba estuary. The film is too discrete to name names or perhaps this is a ritual exorcism of all the people of Guinea-Bissau; in any case, by 1988 everyone knew who was responsible. The ritual succeeds in breaking the drought and in the final shot the children dance in a downpour.
Gomes seems to be saying that for the nation to rediscover a sense of direction requires a rupture with the corrupt political discourse of the present and a reaffirmation of the primordial values unifying the people. Even if the Diancongo rite is not a literal deus ex machina but simply an invocation of some sort of Jungian "collective unconscious;" Gomes seems here to rely on a mythopoeyic rather than a political solution. Cabral himself probably imagined some sort of socialist development path growing out of the collective institutions he improvised in the liberated zones. But he also foresaw the dangers of "mountaintopism," a self-interested, centralized bureaucracy ignoring the daily needs of grassroot producers. In any case, by 1988 socialism had collapsed and nothing but neo-liberal structural adjustment policies had taken its place. Thus the question which Gomes raises and answers only symbolically, continues to face Africans, indeed anyone, looking for a path towards a more just society. (The most thorough introduction to this period of Guinea-Bissau's history is Warriors at Work, by Mustafah Dhada). My apologies if along the way my political agenda indirectly showered over the review, but with this type of film it seems a necessary evil. If there is anyone out of Africa who is interested in a continent that still seems to be shifting and shaping (and no I don't mean geographically) its distorted image, then this film is for all 3 of you. (Does that include me Rigobert - DR. SOTHA?) That just about wraps it, e-mail me Rigobert Song at rigobertsong@hotmail.com and we can talk African film.
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* Morgan Freeman and his lawyer, Bill Luckett, have announced that they are opening up a new restaurant in Clarksdale, Mississippi called Madidi. The fine-dining restaurant will feature French cuisine and is expected to open by November. Freeman is currently in the big screen films "Nurse Betty" (if he doesn't get supporting nomination for this, I will as they say eat my shorts- DR.SOTHA) and "Under Suspicion."
* DreamWorks is getting ready to unveil an elaborate double-disc special edition DVD of "Gladiator," which stars Russell Crowe and co-stars Djimon Hounsou (HENCE THE African American element- DR. SOTHA) ("Amistad") on November 21. The package will include more than four hours of extra material -- which is reportedly among the most for a release of a recent theatrical hit and the most elaborate DVD release ever created by DreamWorks. Brought to us by the groundbreaking team at the Mill in London.
* Denzel Washington will be back on the silver screen Friday, September 29 in the much talked about Disney action drama "Remember The Titans," which is produced by action (high concept) master Jerry Bruckheimer. "Remember The Titans" is based on a true story about the integration of an Alexandria, Virginia high school in 1971. The white school, revered for its football team, is rocked to its core when black teammates are added to the team, coupled with the addition of an African American head football coach Herman Boone (Washington). Boone gets hired for the job over a more experienced white coach, Bill Yoast (WILL PATTON), who's bumped down to assistant coach. As Boone and Yoast try to whip into shape a bunch of angry young black and white boys, the two men learn to overcome their ignorance and bigotry. They realize that they have much in common -- integrity, honor and a strong work ethic. In the process, Boone and Yoast turn boys into men and unite a divided community. The film also features in the cast Donald Faison ("Waiting To Exhale"/"Clueless") and Nicole Ari Parker (from the 'Soul Food" Showtime drama). To find out more about "Remember The Titans," . (Sounds like another big Oscar campaign for our man Denzel - DR. SOTHA)
AFRICAN COAXIAL
* Egypt will hold an international telecommunication exhibition and forum in Cairo in the year 2001. Middle East and Arab States 2001 will be held from Monday 7 to Thursday 10May 2001 at the Cairo International Conference Centre. H.E. The ITU's unique position as a specialised agency of the United Nations enables it to bring together in Cairo all the strategic players in the world of telecommunications, where visitors, exhibitors and speakers will have access to the technology and ideas that will shape the future for the region.
It's time for "Nurses for Answers". "veers" gets Nurse Lotte (you can keep her) for correctly answering that Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder both starred in 4 films together. New question for the week is: 'Can Big Surgeon (trademarked) go on to international acclaim, and make a hero out of me?'
