Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Texts for Study - South African Cinema

Possible Texts for study


Promised Land (2002)

Promised Land is a 2002 film based on the 1978 English translation of the award-winning Afrikaans novel, Na die Geliefde Land (1972) by the South African author, Karel Schoeman.
The film was directed by
Jason Xenopoulos and starred Nick Boraine, Lida Botha, Wilma Stõckenstrom, Louis van Niekerk, Tobie Cronje, Grant Swanby, Daniel Browde, Ian Roberts, Dan Robbertse and Yvonne van den Bergh.
It won the Best Screenplay Award at the
Tokyo International Film Festival in 2002.

Cape of Good Hope 2004

Ensemble look at people in the orbit of an animal shelter in Cape Town. Kate, the shelter manager, is having an affair with a married man, is estranged from her father, and has caught the eye of a widowed veterinarian. Lindiwe, a single mom, is a domestic for an Afrikaner household and studies at night. Her son becomes the acolyte of Jean Claude, a refugee from Congo with a Ph.D. in astronomy; he's the shelter's handyman, good with people and dogs, hoping to immigrate to Canada. Shairfa, who also works at the shelter, and her husband Habib are trying without success to get pregnant. What is it that holds the matter of the universe together?

Big Fellas 2007

Two young white wannabees, JAKE and ZED, set out on a road trip from Cape Town to Johannesburg to close a deal to sell their film. One problem - they need a BEE partner, and they need one fast. On the trip the boys are stalked by their nemesis RAY WHITEHEAD, his femme fatale girlfriend LOLA, a Karoo serial killer, supermodels, shop window mannequins, and a psychotic Gatberg darts champion.

Tsotsi 2005

In Johannesburg, the small time criminal Tsotsi is a teenager without feelings, hardened by his tough life. After killing a man with his gang in a robbery; hitting the gangster Boston of his gang; humiliating a crippled beggar along one night, Tsotsi hijacks a car and under the despair of a woman, he shoots her in the stomach. While driving the car, Tsotsi finds that there is a baby on the back seat and the woman was a desperate mother. He brings the baby to his house in the slum and becomes attached to him. For six days, the baby changes his behavior, arousing and developing the sense of empathy and humanity in the cold blood killer. 2004

Forgiveness 2004


Tertius Coetzee was a police officer during the Apartheid era, and was responsible for the torture and death of Daniel Grootboom, a young freedom fighter. After being granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he travels to the West Coast fishing village of Paternoster to visit Daniel's family and ask for their forgiveness.

Son of Man 2005

The theme is "the story of Jesus reclaimed as an African fable: a simple concept becomes a remarkable cinematic experience in Son of Man." The director dramatised the story of the life of Jesus in the situation of contemporary Africa and asks what would be happen today, if someone in Africa came forward with the same message as Jesus:



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