A friend (he’s a filmmaker himself) emailed me his opinion about “Invictus,” the film in which Nelson Mandela conspires with Matt Damon to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup and absolve white people from all responsibility for wealth and privilege amassed under Apartheid: I saw Invictus … I just wanted to tell you that from […]
There are other film critics who are intellectual–like Stuart Klawans at The Nation, Armond White (he was good once) and Stanley Kaufmann at The New Republic–but they lacked Ebert’s accessibility and heart. (Ebert, by the way, had an acute sense of the racial political economy in US cinema, as Richard Prince blogged at The Root). Ebert, who traveled to Apartheid South Africa as a young man, also reviewed a lot of African films.
The case seems to be the only news out of South Africa nowadays. Nothing else matters. Even Usain Bolt was asked his opinion during what seemed like an interview to promote a brand on CNN. Bolt declared himself “shocked.” Shocking. There’s also the ridiculous: Femi Fani Kayode, a former Nigerian government minister, —in a rambling Facebook post—blamed Steenkamp for her own murder. Pistorius, Kayode claimed, “was provoked into a murderous rage by his pretty little lover (who) played on his insecurities and inadequacies.” Steenkamp was a “creature from the sea” sent by the devil. Okay? Incidentally Kayode was indicted for money laundering last week.
The big kick-off is nearly upon us. Just 11 months after that extraordinary Zambian triumph in Libreville, starting Saturday we have another month of football ahead as Africa’s top teams (and South Africa, there as hosts) fight it out to be Champions of Africa. We’ll be covering the tournament more intensively this time around, in […]
The secret to making a good movie about sport is to make sure there isn’t any sport in it. Remember ‘Invictus‘? Remember ‘Goal‘? Exactly. Distinguished Nigerian filmmaker Tunde Kelani must have known this, because there isn’t any sport in his film, ‘Maami’, even though his hero, Kashy (Wole Ojo), is a global footballing superstar who […]
Rumours are circulating on various Hollywood gossip and film blogs that Stringer Bell also known as Idris Elba — the East London boy made good in Hollywood — is next in line to play Nelson Mandela. Surfing on the mammoth success of his character in The Wire, his relatively popular series Luther on the BBC […]
I recently interviewed the Northern Irish filmmaker Phil Harrison (credit: “Even Gods“), who is crowd-funding his first feature, “The Good Man,” set in Ireland and South Africa. The film tells the stories “of a young banker in Belfast and a teenager living in a Cape Town township. When their lives unexpectedly collide, their impact on one […]
We promised ourselves we won’t get drawn into this. This is the week in which Cape Town viral rappers Die Antwoord released the music video for their new single “Fok julle Naaiers.” The music video contains some Die Antwoord staples (spiders and scorpions come out of rapper Ninja’s mouth while he throws around the word Nigger, […]
Coinciding with a senior government official in South Africa channeling the views of Apartheid ideologues about race, the online publication The Daily Maverick Online features a profile of Jonathan Jansen, the current vice chancellor of the University of the Free State. Jansen is a prominent educator and public figure (and prolific writer) in South Africa, […]
