Father Geek here welcoming our good Doctor, Dr. SOTHA back home to join Head Nurse Hollis, Rigobert Song and crew at Africa-AICN's office/lab/clinic outside Cape Town.
It's great to have you back on your home turf Doc!
Now, here's SOTHA's info filled column for this week...
My cellmate in prison once told me, "patience is a virtue, what happens when you have no virtue? You kill 5 prison guards on your way to freedom". And so it was that his prophetic words, led me through the cavernous chambers of a Nice dungeon, to a better life. Killing 5 prison guards is one thing, but convincing the gorgeous prison counselor Ghi Ghi to spring me time in the lavatory to devise my plan was quite something else. You see all Ghi Ghi wanted in return was a night's passion in my prison cell. 'I've never slept with a Doctor before' was her sole motivation. Reluctantly, but in the interest of scientific exploration, we traded chemicals, and the results were quite astonishing. You see Ghi Ghi died from what we doctors call 'eternal euphoria', An epidemic that strikes you right in the abdomen once you reach total ecstasy. There was no way of warning her, but her death was not in vein. There's only been one other death reported (Don Simpson) of this kind, and it still remains a scientific mystery. I cut out her organs before my escape, and will be conducting a series of tests on them, in the hope of breaking this puzzling enigma (that has baffled scientists for over 3 decades.)
Needless to say, I, DR.SOTHA am once again free, and with a whole new lease on life. 'Total ecstasy' your time is running out.
Just a word of thanks to Nurse Hollis for running this column during my unfortunate exile. I am indebted to you. Any information on 'eternal euphoria' - case studies, etc. can be sent to africaaicn@hotmail.com
Please do not underestimate this epidemic, it hits you when you least expect it.
SOUTH AFRICA
* Suggesting that audiences remain interested in golf telecasts only when Tiger Woods is on his game, ratings for Sunday's NBC coverage of the U.S. Open fell 20 percent from last year. Overnight figures indicated that the telecast averaged a 7.0 rating, down from an 8.8 for the comparable day a year ago. Saturday's rating was a 5.5 versus a 6.5 last year. The golf contest was won by Retief Goosen of South Africa (Whoo Hooo, we finally have a product that sells overseas - DR.SOTHA.) Reporting on the sinking ratings for the Open, the Wall Street Journal commented that they reflect "the vulnerability of a sport that relies primarily on a single athlete, a fact that could ripple through negotiations over television-broadcast rights." (Yeah, but wasn't that Retief something else? - DR.SOTHA)
* Harvey Keitel is set to star in and produce the dark comedy "Murder Trust" for South African producer Avi Lerner's Millennium Films. Shooting is slated to start this year on location in Europe. "Murder," to be directed by James Riffel, is based on a true story centering on a group of five working-class barflies who come up with a scheme to kill people in order to get their insurance money. But one of the guys they try to kill (Keitel) won't seem to die, and they must come up with several ways to off him. Keitel will produce the project with partner Peggy Gormley through their production company the Goatsingers along with Danny Lerner and Boaz Davidson of Nu Image/Millennium Films.
* There will be a screening of the highly acclaimed film, 'What Happened to Mbuyisa', on Friday, 22 June at 8pm at Athlone Advice Office, George Str. Athlone, CBD in Cape Town. The film takes up the story of the young man holding the limp body of Hector Peterson on 16 June 1976. It follows Mbuyisa's troubled life and tries to uncover his tragic and unknown time in exile.
* Film producer Anant Singh of Videovision Entertainment has extended an invitation to all Comrades Marathon runners who finished in the first 5 000 to attend special screenings of his latest film, 'The Long Run'. This is a contemporary South African drama that has the Comrades Marathon as its backdrop. 'The Long Run' stars Nthati Moshesh, Seputla Sebogodi and Desmond Dube opposite Oscar Nominee Armin Mueller-Stahl, and was written by Johann Potgieter. It was directed by Jean Stewart and produced by Anant Singh and Helena Spring. The film is Executive Produced by Sanjeev Singh and Sudhir Pragjee.
* And now news from South Africa's 'Saturday Night Live' also known as the South African Box Office. The Ben Affleck / Josh Hartnett war epic, Pearl Harbour, remains at the number one position at the South African box office. It has made a whopping R5 469 513 (about the price of a sundae in North America) in just two weeks of release. Next up are Sweet November, The Mexican, Exit Wounds, with Miss Congeniality hanging in at number five, after 11 weeks on the circuit.
* Newly appointed CEO of the South African International Film & Television Market, Mike Auret, visited the Banff Television Festival in June 2001, in order to develop links with the international television industry. This year, Sithengi intends to focus on the South African/Canadian co-production treaty in order to facilitate greater use of this treaty by South Africans to increase production in Southern Africa. While in Banff Auret met with Representatives of the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association, Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Trade Commission (Film and Television). At these meetings a tentative agreement was secured for a delegation of Canadian producers to come to Sithengi 2002 to initiate or bring to fruition co-production agreements with South African Producers. In addition, meetings were held with the Atlantic Film Festival (Halifax) which runs a Strategic Partners Conference every year after the Toronto Film Festival in order to provide a focus for producers on specific territories with which Canada has a treaty. Tentative agreement was also reached to make South Africa part of the focus for this conference in 2002. In 2001 there will be an increased Canadian presence at Sithengi. Discussions are ongoing with representatives of Alliance Atlantis, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Discovery Channel, Nelvana and a variety of other major producers and broadcasters regarding their involvement in Sithengi 2001. International co-production expert and veteran pitching and packaging trainer, Jan Miller of IMX Communications, may lead the pitching and packaging workshops and public pitching forums at Sithengi 2001. (Talk, talk, talk - The South African Anthem everybody - DR.SOTHA)
* It with great sadness that I report the untimely death of local filmmaker, Du Preez Heunis. The 34-year old quadraplegic was a symbol of hope for many people in the local industry. Heunis not only directed two feature films, 'Dark Horse' and 'The Gates of Cleveland Road', but also ran a bi-annual film school in Pretoria, the Academy of Film, Television and Multimedia Production. He suffered a heart attack on 8 June in his Pretoria home and will be sorely missed by family, friends and colleagues.
* Top-rated South African entertainment series, Soul City, has been recognised by the international broadcasting community, for the reach and effect of its product. The London-based One World Broadcasting Trust hosts an annual Media Awards ceremony, which celebrates outstanding achievements by media in highlighting the concerns and challenges faced by developing countries. Last week, the 2001 Special Award was given to Soul City, which "is particularly relevant as it is such a great example of the way in which the media can be harnessed to such a positive and ground-breaking effect," said Nikki Weir, assistant to the Chair of the Trust, Sir Michael Bett (CBE). One World Broadcasting Trust was established in 1987 by broadcasters from ITV and BBC, to meet the needs of global audiences seeking to improve their knowledge of developing countries, beyond the traditional documentation of wars and disasters, to extend to the human and positive face of the developing world. (Well done, but here's an idea, make 'films' too that an international audience can watch - yeah okay a bit far fetched - DR.SOTHA)
* South Africa won six Gold Awards in the Press & Poster category. Winning
agencies were Ogilvy & Mather Rightford Searle-Tripp & Makin (Volkswagen
Golf Estate), Lowe Lintas Bull Calvert Pace (Sparletta Bubble Blu - 3); The
Jupiter Drawing Room (Nike Shox), The Jupiter Drawing Room (Nike Paralympics
2000) Silver Awards went to TBWA Hunt Lascaris (Seychelles - 4), Harrison
Human (Fanatics Bookstore), Net#work BBDO (Hollard Insurance), Ogilvy &
Mather Rightford Searle-Tripp & Makin (Plight of the Penguin Fund), The
Jupiter Drawing Room (Nike Paralympics 2000 - 2). The only winner of the
Bronze Awards was The Jupiter Drawing Room (Nike Paralympics 2000).
* Egyptian filmmakers who stray from cultural norms in their themes are likely to find themselves ostracized not only in the film community but in Egyptian society as a whole, director Khalid Al-Haggar has told the British Guardian newspaper. Al-Haggar said that his first feature, about an abortive love affair between an Arab and a Jew, not only was banned in Egypt, but he himself was shunned by half his friends and his mentor, the country's leading film director, Youssef Chahine. "You're not allowed to question anything in Egypt," he told the newspaper. "If you're not wholly with them, you're against them." Now living in London, Al-Haggar commented, "I can go back to Egypt now, but I couldn't make any films unless they were completely anodyne [tranquilizing]." He said that his current film, 'Room for Rent', is relatively non-controversial and that originally the Cairo Film Festival invited him to show it there this year. "But I discovered that there was only one show -- just for journalists and critics. The public wasn't allowed in, so I refused."
* * While Orlando Jones travels through Europe promoting his new movie Evolution, he'll be faced with a dilemma - deciding whether to play a pimp or a jewel thief in his next film. The actor has three films in development to which he's attached to produce and star in. There's The Reverend Pimp Daddy at Columbia, which Jones describes as, "A comedy about a pimp with a heart of gold, and a few gold teeth to match." In the picture, Jones plays a pimp who turns reverend. Then there's Sticky Fingers, in which the actor would portray a jewel thief hired by the Queen of Swaziland to steal the illustrious 'Star of Africa' diamond from England. Whatever the decision, Jones is certain the shoot will be far easier to deal with than his month-long stay in the desert town of Paige, Arizona, where director Ivan Reitman shot much of Evolution. Jones says, "You say the word Four Seasons in Paige and people believe you're talking about the weather. Ask for a bagel, and they tell you it's not a pet shop. The people are really nice and genuine, but it's its own special little place, for sure."
* The always eloquent Rigobert Song.
Hello readers, the film I review today will completely alter your perception of third world countries period. It's an astonishing piece of work and should be seen by anybody with a brain. Before I continue with the review, please e-mail me at rigobertsong@hotmail.com with any African film debates.
'Chef! and La tête dans les nuages' (Chief! and Head in the Clouds) Produced and Director by Jean-Marie Teno - Cameroon - 98 minutes - In French with English subtitles
Jean-Marie Teno's two provocative new documentaries Chef! and La tête dans les nuages together with his earlier Afrique, je te plumerai offer the most searching critiques available on film of the political and economic stagnation besetting many African states. At the same time, he introduces us to grassroots forces in civil society and the informal economy which are usually overlooked by the Western media but which could point the way towards vigorous democratic development in Africa. In his most recent film, Chef!, Teno locates the roots of Africa's authoritarian regimes in the patriarchal family, reinforced by traditional kingship and the colonial experience. Teno insists that this film was not planned but imposed itself on him during a visit to his ancestral village, Bandjoun, in the Ghomala speaking region of Western Cameroon. He had gone to film dances dedicating a monument to King Kamga Joseph II, the filmmakers' great grand uncle, but the ceremony soon turned into a celebration of one-man rule, in particular Cameroonian President Paul Biya's.
The next day Teno encountered a vigilante mob kicking and screaming at a 16-year-old boy who had stolen some chickens. It is easy to imagine what might have developed if the filmmaker and his camera had not been present. Teno comments "The paradox of this country is that the national sport - far more popular than soccer - is the plundering of resources by our heads and chiefs, yet a youth was nearly lynched for stealing one hen and four chicks." Teno wonders if the powerless in the face of massive injustice take out their rage on those less powerful than themselves.
A few hours after this, incident Teno bought a souvenir calendar listing "the rules and regulations of the husband in his home." These included: "The husband is always chief - even in bed;" " If the husband strikes the wife while visitors are present, she must smile and pretend that nothing has happened; etc. Teno wryly observes that if every husband is a chief then Cameroon is a nation of 7 million chiefs. The director of the Association for the End of Violence to Women points out that the husbands' dominance over his wife is guaranteed not only by tradition but the French Civil Code of 1804 still operative in Cameroon though long since revised in France itself. Teno interviews a number of Cameroonian human rights activists who denounce "a political culture of irresponsibility granting those in power complete impunity and no accountability." President Paul Biya has disbanded most civic movements to protect what he calls "Cameroonian style" or "peaceful democracy." For example, in December 1997 Pius Njawe, editor of an opposition news weekly, Le Messenger, was arrested simply for asking if the President had left a football match because of ill health. Njawe was condemned to two years imprisonment in the horrifying, disease-ridden Newbell prison where 150 prisoners are crowded into 30' by 40' cells stacked three deep without a sewage system or adequate food. In prison, Njawe learned there was a fixed schedule of bribes that needed to be paid even to get a trial date; he came to perceive the Ministry of Justice as a giant business enterprise selling freedom.
Teno investigates the ties between unaccountable government and an unproductive economy in La tête dans les Nuages. Kleptocracy has become an accepted fact of Cameroonian life described by the proverb: "The goat grazes where it is tied." The government controlled formal sector, like its colonial predecessor, is essentially parasitical. An informal sector has emerged parallel to it which increasingly supplies the daily subsistence needs of the people. Irene, for example, works at the Ministry of Education for an unreliable and inadequate salary; she earns the money she needs to eat from selling beignets in the market. She also belongs to a tontine or "credit union" which offers its members a pool of capital to draw on for business ventures. Such clubs, ubiquitous among African market women, help fill the economic and social vacuum left by the decay of traditional society and the unresponsiveness of the formal banking sector.
Cameroon's forked economy is also reflected in its schizophrenic education system. Cameroonians flock to the universities to acquire a neo-colonial education which ill-prepares them for the actual needs of the local economy. Jacky, a recent law graduate, is frustrated in his efforts to get a professional job. His family finally bankrolls a men's boutique which merely imports Western fashions and expectations to the country. Teno concludes that Cameroon's economy is like a man with his feet in trash and his head in the clouds with nothing but chaos in between. It's a breathtaking piece of work and I salute Teno for not shying away from such controversial material. Anyone who calls themselves serious film socialites need to see this. The United Nations need to see this, but above all, you the reader need to see this. Here's a quote from Variety who have seen this: "Chef! is a brisk and focused look at a nation struggling uphill against corruption and archaic social norms. Programmers attuned to women's, African and political activist issues will find this a worthy item."
AFRICAN AMERICAN
* Samuel L. Jackson, Milla Jovovich and Stellan Skarsgard will topline Seven Arts Pictures' dark thriller "No Good Deed" for director Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces.) The project begins shooting on location in Montreal in July for about eight weeks. Based on Dashiell Hammett's short story, "House on Turk Street," the project is about a San Francisco policeman (Jackson) who is about to take an overdue vacation but stumbles upon an international ring of bond thieves, led by Jovovich and Skarsgard. A cat-and-mouse game ensues. Christopher Canaan, who created the series "Walker, Texas Ranger," adapted "Deed" for the big screen.
* After successfully teaming with producer Joel Silver on Warner Bros.' action films "Exit Wounds" and "Romeo Must Die," rapper DMX is reteaming with Silver and the studio for a third time on an untitled project inspired by the 1931 German crime thriller "M." The project is the first of a multipicture deal that Warner Bros. signed with DMX. The project is being aimed to start production in the fall. The original film was directed by Fritz Lang and starred Peter Lorre in the story a child murderer who stalks Berlin and, despite an exhaustive investigation, eludes the police. The citywide search by the force makes it nearly impossible for organized crime to operate, so the criminals decide to help catch the murderer.
* Whoopi Goldberg is hitting the stage in her first live tour in more than a decade. The Oscar-winning actress launched a 29-date tour of American cities Tuesday night. But despite her Hollywood fame, the sassy funnywoman is only playing small theatres - because she wants to avoid raising audience expectations of her act. Explaining her return to her stand-up roots, Whoopi says, "I just thought it was time to start talking about stuff. The last time I felt like this I wrote a book, but it feels like a good time to go and do what I used to do in the very beginning." Topics covered by the 45-year-old star will include President Bush, who "has given me a lot to talk about", and the menopause - "all the shocking changes that seem to happen". The tour ends in San Francisco on August 11th. (This coincides nicely with Whoopi's 'no good parts out there' period - DR.SOTHA)
* On the surface, Walt Disney Pictures' upcoming "The Princess Diaries" looks like a typical studio film. It stars Julie Andrews and teen singer Mandy Moore, is directed by veteran Garry Marshall, and it's a family movie that doesn't break much ideological ground. Though "Diaries" may not be revolutionary on screen, behind the scenes it is a rarity: a high-profile studio film produced by a black woman. Debra Martin Chase, who produced the film as the executive vice president of Whitney Houston's BrownHouse Prods., is one of only a handful of black women who are players in the feature production game. "The entertainment industry is not an easy game to play," said Chase. "It's a system designed to keep everyone out and to keep people from moving forward regardless of race or gender. Being a minority can be used to make it that much harder." A quick glance at the production ranks reveals just how much of an anomaly Chase is. Even as women and black men have steadily become more ingrained in Hollywood's studio system, black women have remained largely on the outside looking in. (Wait till Pam Grier hears about this shit - DR.SOTHA)
* Oscar winner Nicolas Cage has been tapped to receive the 16th annual American Cinematheque Award at the organization's annual benefit, the Moving Picture Ball, scheduled for Sept. 22 at the Beverly Hilton. The tribute, slated for broadcast Oct. 10 on TNT, will be hosted by Sam 'The Man' Jackson with co-chairs Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Dolgen and Gerry Harrington. The Moving Picture Ball is the nonprofit film and cultural organization's major annual benefit. Previous Cinematheque honorees include Jodie Foster, Eddie Murphy, Michael Douglas, Sean Connery, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and last year's honoree, Bruce Willis.
