Review: Smudged Red-Eye in Durbs
Thanks to Durban D-Va yet again for filling us in on what’s happening in Durbs – if the photo looks blurred that’s coz it’s REPRESENTING D-Va’s state on the night! Sounds like they need to cast those nets a bit wider… : Friday’s are often rather festive (and sometimes also a little fractious)&this Friday past was even more so, it being the Friday before the first of Octobe…r – the month associated with festivities of all kinds, from ancient harvest festivals to Thanksgiving and Halloween, the month we become aware of approaching summer and the final quarter of the year. So my Friday at Red Eye was a bit of a blur…a glorious haze of city lights, AV projections, fashionistas and subcultures. This month’s Red Eye was (mostly) back in the gallery this time, so it was up the carpeted stairs, face-to-face with the stuffed giraffe, then face-to-face with female nudity on the landing in the form of Brigitta Gaylard’s final series in her Boudoir board trilogy of photographic art. It was amusing to see how uncomforable people were with being confronted with nudity in a confined space and people were less interactive with these boards as they were the the two previous series, which were displayed on the pavement outside. For this, The Glamour Series, Brigitta styled herself in reference to works of art by Gustav Klimt and Schiele, “sexual voyeurs of the female body”. Images of the artist reclining on luxurious fabrics, the colour gold predominating, had the artist’s own poetry stencilled onto the larger-than-life photo-boards. The series is all about the female subject in art, the male gaze, the productive channelling of sexual energy, sex as a form of spiritualism, motherhood and the process of self-acceptance as a sexual being. Read more about Brigitta and the motivation for her work here. A very large screen displaying a visual piece by Roger Miller towered above the top of the stairs. One of the gallery rooms had been transformed into an unstructured jamming venue, with musicians from various backgrounds jamming in front of a screen of visuals by Rike Sitas, fast becoming on of the hottest names in the local art scene. This was like peeping into a private party, lots of bopping going on. (Musicians included: Quincy Fynn, David and Elbi (?)from the Big Idea who pleased the crowds at this year’s Splashy; Ngeza and Sazi Dlamini; Richard Ellis; Portia Malunga from Rouge; Sam and Daniel Sheldon and a Dlamini brother who turned up with a flute…) Fashion by the students graduating from the Linea Fashion Academy was on show, and models strutted their stuff to a...
Movie buffs – FREE Spanish film festival!
Now we know how hard (and expensive) it is to get that first film off the ground, so do yourselves a favour all aspirational movie-makers – take a break and grab your neglected friends and loved ones and treat yourselves to some muchos grande Spanish flieks – they’re free! The Spanish film industry experienced a boom this year thanks to the international success of The Sea Inside… (Mar Adentro) which received an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. Now South African film fans have the chance to see some of the best award-winning films Spain produced at this year’s Spanish Film Festival at Cinema Nouveau screened by Jameson. Best news of all is that attendance is free. The films include the Cannes Film Festival winner The Hours of the Day; the hilarious comedy Torremolinos 73 and the Spanish Civil War drama Soldados de Ssalamina. The Spanish Film festival dates are: 7-13 October – Pretoria – Cinema Nouveau Brooklyn Mall from 14-20 October – Johannesburg – Cinema Nouveau Rosebank Mall 28 October – 3 Nov – Cape Town – Cinema Nouveau V&A Waterfront 11-17 November – Durban – Cinema Nouveau Gateway There are six films in the festival with screenings each week at 11.30am, 2.15pm, 5.15pm and 7.45pm. The programme is subject to change. Tickets may be bought at participating cinemas’ box offices, through TicketLine 082 16789 or at THE STER KINEKOR WEBSITE....
Cape Town WORLD Cinema Festival and SITHENGI 2005
If you’ve got a movie and you need a deal, get to Sithengi and hang out with the industry – we hear it has it’s ups and downs – this year looks to be blinger than most with a fine line-up of African and other films on show – check it out. The 4th Cape Town World Cinema Festival (CTWCF) takes place in and around Cape Town from the 11th to th…e 20th November and marks the 10th Anniversary of its business component, the Sithengi Film and TV Market, 15 -18 November. The CTWCF is the only film and television event of its kind in Africa. This year the CTWCF is bigger than ever before and will showcase over 110 feature films, shorts and documentaries and will be screened at a variety of venues from Artscape Theatre Centre, Cinema Nouveau at the V&A Waterfront; V&A Amphitheatre and the Labia Theatre on Orange to Cinemax in Mitchell’s Plain, the Kismet in Athlone and the FAWU Hall in Gugulethu and the Zolani Multi-purpose Hall in Nyanga. ‘The 2005 Festival will be completely different to last year,’ says CEO & Festival Director Michael Auret. ‘It is my objective to increase audience participation in the Festival and grow audiences for film. For instance we have included Leon Schuster’s latest slapstick comedy Mama Jack. If by doing this more people look at the programme and go to other films, then we will have achieved something.” This year’s festival will cater for the entire international spectrum of taste and culture that is encapsulated in Cape Town. Latest films by iconic directors such as Lars von Trier, Ousmane Sembene, Wong Kar-Wai and David Cronenberg complement an African Retrospective to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sithengi Film & TV Market as well as 50 years of African Cinema. But there is even more, with focuses on Cuba and also Argentina. South African highlights include Gavin Hood’s Tsotsi, Khalo Matabane’s Conversations of a Sunday Afternoon, Kevin de Toit’s Tau ya Soweto and Darrel Roodt’s much anticipated Faith’s Corner. And, says Michael Auret, the bright lights, fashion and spectacle will be in full swing too! ‘The bling and glamour of the Oscars is reflected in the 2 daily Red Carpet Screenings of the movies that are in contention for the Annual Awards. These are held at 18h00 and 20h00 at Artscape and, yes there actually is a red carpet, and flashing cameras and screaming fans! This culminates in the Gala Awards night on the 19th of November. So, if high-fashion and celebrity is your thing, Artscape is where you want to be on the evenings of the 12th...
HOLIDAY – film preview at AFDA 6th filmfest
The AFDA 6th annual film fest has kicked off, thanks to Aquoibon for the invite to the screening of one of the hot young films – HOLIDAY – this pic makes it look really enticing – here’s the story: Holiday: Neil thinks that he is named after Neil Diamond, only he is not. After his estranged family is killed in a car accident coming back from holiday, Neil travels the streets of …Joburg, where he meets Bianca who helps him appreciate what he has got. Staring: Ricardo Ferreira Producer: Leanne Callanan Director: Benjamin Magowan For more information you can contact Leanne....
SA short film receives international acclaim
A short film made in Cape Town is currently on the program at the Berlin Festival of Art and DIgital Culture. Well done guys – keep on flying the flag!: South African experimental short film “I love you Jet Li” has been selected as part of the official programme for transmediale.06, an international festival for art and digital culture held annually in Berlin. The film, which is… director and producer Jaco Bouwer’s first short, also won Best Experimental Short Film at last year’s Santiago International Short Film Festival. The 11-minute short is an experimental South African Fong Kong love story that explores dysfunctional relationships using multiple layers of narration. According to Bouwer it flies in the face of traditional genre definitions by mixing “documentary, music video and short story formats.” “I love you Jet Li” also challenges traditions in other ways. It was shot digitally in Cape Town on a shoestring budget and features a cast and crew of four. Bouwer is better known as a Fleur de Cap winning director and an actor and dancer. It is actress Dale Dodgen first role and writer Stacy Hardy also makes her film debut. Acclaimed experimental electronic musician Felix Laband composed the...
TSOTSI didn’t get it but you can catch KHALO
Yip – no luck yet again – the Golden Globe for the Best Foreign Language film went to Paradise Now from Palestine… But that’s ok – we made it into the final which is a great feat. Congrats to Gavin, Presley and everyone else involved in the film – you did well guys. The great news is that if the article below got you going, you have a chance to watch Khalo Matabane’s films and… chat to the man himself this Thursday evening at one of our favourite Joburg shops – XARRA books in Newtown. It’s not just a shop, it’s an social and cultural institution. “Story of a Beautiful Country & Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon” 19 Jan 2006 Thurs@18h30 Xarra Books To book you place please email OR call Thobile on 011-832 3069 **************************************************************** 16 Jan 2006 Thanks to RYAN for the heads up on this – Yes people it’s the Golden Globes tonight (well in about 14 hours which would make it in the middle of the night) and if you didn’t know already, TSOTSI has been nominated in the foreign film category. Click here to go the Golden Globes site. The article from the Baltimore Sun sent in by Ryan below is an interview with Khalo Matabane, one of our innovative young film stars whose film fund-raising party you may recall we posted on our site last year. Make sure to read his words for an honest look at the situation in South African society. He shoots straight from the hip – we like straight-shooters. “Khalo Matabane, a filmmaker, talks of what he calls “a funny incident” of his own making at a restaurant in the well-to-do, mostly white Johannesburg neighborhood of Parkhurst. On his way to the restroom, he crossed paths with a white woman he didn’t know. They made eye contact and, he says, he blurted: “I know I am everything you despise – drug dealer, rapist, serial killer. But I’ve changed. The only thing I do now is sell drugs.” It was a provocation, like the best of his low-budget semidocumentary films that show South Africans’ long-lived unease with issues of race, crime and foreigners — films steadily winning favorable attention in South Africa and abroad. Another South African film, Tsotsi, by director Gavin Hood, about six days in the life of a young gangster who might yet win redemption, is a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at tonight’s Golden Globe Awards. Smiling at the memory of the restaurant encounter, Matabane says his aim was not just to shock but, in his own way, to shake the accepted view that Parkhurst...
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