Oscar Nominees announced and I get excited for the wrong reasons

It has become the norm that the beginning of every year is abuzz with Hollywood Award Season talk.  From Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to Vilakazi Street in Soweto millions of people are in deep conversation and or debate about who is deserving of Hollywood’s top accolades.  Last week, I was one such person. My colleagues and I were so thrilled  about the announcement of the Academy Award nominations that we decided to have a competition to see who would predict the nominees in the various acting, directing and best picture categories.

Being the humble cinephile (A person with a passionate interest in cinema) that I am - I will not waste time telling you that I won that competition.  Though the victory made my week, my elation was cut short after realising that while celebrating knowledge of American cinema I had been oblivious to African talent making headway at those very awards.

So while I was busy predicting whether or not Quinton Tarantino or Steven Spielberg were going to get Oscar nods I had neglected to find out what African filmmakers were vying for the golden statuettes. I was mortified to discover a couple days later that – ‘Asad’, a short film shot in South Africa, had received an Oscar nod. What makes my ignorance even worse is the fact that the film had scooped Best Short Film awards at 13 festivals around the world during the past year. How had this film managed to fly under my movie radar?

The answer is simple, I - like many other Africans, am always preoccupied by what the likes of Hollywood and Bollywood are doing that we become unaware of the gems in our backyard. ‘Asad’ is one such gem - a coming of age fable of a Somali boy, named Asad, as he struggles to survive in his war-torn land. The movie takes us into the lives of ordinary people in a seaside village in Somalia, providing the audience with a glimpse into the daily struggles of ordinary Somalis living in a dysfunctional and failed state.

Now that the wool has been removed from my eyes, I am definitely rooting for ‘Asad’ to win the best Short Film Oscar – but the irony is no one seems to care. Everyone around me is too upset that Leonardo DiCaprio was snubbed at the 85^th Academy Awards.

AMAA calls for African entries

Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) recently announced that it is now calling for entries for the 2013 edition to be held in April next year. The deadline for submissions is 30 December 2012 and nominations will be announced in the first week of March.

Acceptable genres include feature length films, shorts and documentary entries. Only films produced, premiered and or released between December 2011 and November 2012 are eligible. Features may not exceed 120 minutes and shorts should not be longer than 40 minutes.

The AMAAs are an offshoot of the Africa Film Academy. The Academy, founded on the best film tradition, is geared towards research, training and propagating film making in Africa. Established in 2005, AMAA aims to facilitate the development and relevance of African film & cinema by providing a rewards & recognition platform for film makers on the continent. African film makers work hard with very little and have, not through serendipity but through sheer audacity, managed to build the 3rd largest film industry in the world, and are poised to take poll position, beating America and India.

Previous AMAA winners include How 2 Steal 2 Million (South Africa), Toussaint Louverture (Senegal/France), The Education of Auma Obama (Germany) and White Sugar In A Black Pot (USA).

 

Little One vies for Oscar

It has been reported that Director Darrell Roodt's latest film, "Little One", has been confirmed as South Africa's entry into the Best Foreign Film category for next year's Oscars. The announcement was made by the South African Academy Award Selection Committee and the National Film and Video Foundation.

"Yesterday", another film by Roodt, was nominated for an Oscar in 2005.If approved by the Oscars Academy Award Selection Committee, which makes its final selection of nominees in January, the film will represent South Africa at the 85th Annual Academy Awards in 2013.

Little One tells a story of a six-year-old girl (Vuyelwa Msimang), who is found left for dead on the dunes near a township in Johannesburg. She is found by a middle-aged woman, Pauline played by Lindiwe Ndlovu, who rushes her to hospital.

 Saving her life, it transpires that the little girl has been raped and her face beaten in so badly that she doesn't even look human anymore. The story then follows Pauline's journey as she becomes actively involved with the child's case, from going to the extreme of kidnapping the girl from the hospital after her unsuccessful attempt to adopt her, to conducting her own investigation into what happened to the little girl.

Submission deadline for SAFTAS 7 entries extended

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) has extended the closing date for the call for local production companies to submit their entries for the 7th annual South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs). The closing date has been extended to Thursday the 27th of September 2012 at 16h00 with a penalty fee of R350.00 per entry. The penalty fee will be payable for all the entries that will be received after the initial closing date which was the 20th of September 2012.

The SAFTAs, managed under the custodianship of the National Film and Video Foundation, are an industry initiative governed by the SAFTAS committee and the body of industry representatives comprising of the broadcasters, SASFED and other key stakeholders.

The basic guidelines for the eligibility of entries are as follows:

    For TV fiction, non-fiction, student films and TV animation, only South African films and television programmes that have been produced and publicly exhibited or broadcast between the 1st of August 2011 and the 12th of August 2012 are eligible to enter.

    For feature film and feature length animation, only South African films produced and publicly exhibited or broadcast between the 1st of January 2012 and the 31st of December 2012 are eligible to enter. Only productions that are entered will be eligible for consideration.

"We once again begin the most exciting journey in the film and television industry calendar. This is a time where the industry comes together with the aim of recognizing and celebrating the best of South African talent in film and television. As we commence this process leading to the industry's annual prestigious event, we call upon the industry to support every stage of the SAFTAs to ensure another successful event.

The SAFTAs have come a long way in the past six years and we look forward to working with the industry to grow the event further," says the NFVF CEO and SAFTAs Chairperson Zama Mkosi.

The SAFTAs has since its inception honoured individuals and productions in the following categories: TV Non-fiction, TV Fiction, Feature Films, Short Films, Student Films and Animation. The awards also honour the lifetime achievers with the Special Lifetime Achievement awards given to those esteemed individuals who have long served the industry in various categories.

This year the SAFTAS launches a new category called Best International Adaptations. This award will recognise the programmes originating from international formats. These would include shows like Survivor, SA Idols, So you think you can dance and SA's got Talents.

The system that the SAFTA Committee introduced last year of incorporating the previous SAFTA winners and nominees to the judging panels will be utilized again this year. This system was introduced with the aim of encouraging peer recognition within the industry and to ensure that there is transparency throughout the process.

As with the previous years, the public will also get the opportunity to vote for their Best Soapie.

For complete rules and guidelines of the SAFTAs, click here.

All the entries should be submitted through an online entry system which can be found on the SAFTA Entries website, click here to visit the SAFTA Entries website.

The new closing date for entries is Thursday the 27th of September 2012.

The glittering awards ceremony for the 7th annual SAFTAs will be held in March 2013 where all winners will be announced and will be presented with the official SAFTA trophy, the Golden Horn.

Schuster teams up with Walt Disney

South African funny man, actor and movie producer, Leon Schuster (Mr. Bones) has secured a deal with the Walt Disney Company. The Hollywood company has agreed to partly finance his new venture that is still unnamed and was apparently inspired by a Jamie Uys movie.


Disney has indicated, through its publicity company in South Africa, that the support for Schuster is a firm indication of its commitment to the local entertainment industry.


The movie will have the full support of Disney's marketing and distribution infrastructure.


Disney has not guaranteed sales of the movie in overseas markets but has given the assurance that it will work hard to secure various international deals once the movie is completed.

Blitz Patrollie a South African buddy cop movie

Famous South African comedian Kagiso Lediga has written a buddy cop comedy set in Johannesburg. The film, produced by Diprente Films and directed by Andrew Wessels started shooting in Johannesburg on Friday 09th of September 2011.


The film chronicles the adventures of Rummy Augustine (Joey Rasdien) and his partner, Ace Dikolobe (David Kau), police officers who have had the misfortune of being stationed in a little known depot in the belly of the Johannesburg CBD. Rummy is bogged down with trying to start a family and an overbearing mother-in-law who just won't move out. The overzealous Ace, on the other hand, can think of nothing better to do in the morning than to put on his "lucky" bulletproof vest and head out to kick some bad guy ass.


The script was conceived out of the writer's passion for stories that resonate with a young and vibrant South Africa with a penchant for comedy - an audience Lediga is familiar with both on stage and on the small screen.
Blitz Patrollie pays homage to Johannesburg, an African economic and cultural giant, and is shot on location in the lush Northern Suburbs, the gritty streets of the CBD, the familiar township landscape and everywhere in between. The city and its many contradictions are at the very core of the film’s narrative.


Blitz Patrollie is the first feature film to come out of Diprente Films. The producers are excited about the quality of talent both in front of and behind the camera and envision that the film will be an impressive and memorable contribution to the growing South African film landscape.


The movie will be distributed by the National Film and Video Foundation and is scheduled for release in South Africa in 2012.

Kenyan criminal's bestseller made into blockbuster

Kenyadian Productions a Kenya/Canada production company has confirmed that they have begun penning a screenplay adaptation of Kenyan author John Kirimati’s bestselling novels- My Life In Crime, My life With A Criminal and My Life in Prison. The production company, which was in talks with East Africa Publishers for 2 years for the film rights, recently secured the film rights for 7 years.

My Life In Crime (working title) is slated to begin filming at the end of 2011 with the release due in 2012. “We are still not sure of the title of the movie yet,” said Neil Schell Director and producer of the film. “We thought we would use the most popular book’s title- My Life In Crime, because it easily translates to Kenyans and it also gives anyone unfamiliar with the books a clue as to what the film is about.”

The treatment for My Life in Crime, which will combine all three books, has recently been completed. “I was very particular about how the story was to be laid out which is what is done during the treatment stage,” said Schell. “There are so many story events in the three books that one has to decide what to leave in and what to leave out and then appropriately build the story so that the audience enjoys the movie the entire way.”

Schell explained that they have commissioned gifted Kenyan writer Serah Mwihaki to pen the screenplay adaptation of the book based on her quality. “We decided to go with Serah after many interviews with many writers here in Kenya,” Schell stated. “Out of all the applications Serah’s work was the most exciting and interesting. She captured the essence of the story and that is crucial.”

As the title suggests the My Life In Crime book series is an autobiographical tale of John Kiriamiti a Kenyan criminal who featured on the country’s most wanted list in the 1960s and 1970s. In the books Kiriamiti re-counts how he got into the life of criminality as a petty thief, his rise into the Kenyan most wanted list and his subsequent incarceration. It was during his stay in prison that Kiriamiti wrote My Life in Crime, the first book in the series. The book has since been chronicled as Kenya’s best‐selling novel of the early 1980s.

Schell, who has appeared in films such as A-Team, Watchmen, Dr. Dolittle and directed several TV series’, stated that the film will be a period piece. “My Life In Crime will be true to the time period- Kenya in the late 60’s through to the mid 80’s,” he said. “The film will be gritty, hard and be filled with all the action a highly sought after gangster can muster up.”