Événements

Third edition of the Cape Winelands Film Festival: 17 – 27 March 2010

At the Awards celebration of the Cape Winelands Film Festival on 27 March 2010 the following Awards were presented by the International Film Festival Jury.

SHORT FILMS
Special Mention: Dance Macabre – Dir. Pedro Pirez
Best Short Film: Hammerhead – Dir. Sam Donovan
Best South African Short Film: Filho / Hidden Places – Dir Jamie Beron

DOCUMENTARY
Special Mention: Kentridge and Dumas in Conversation Dir Catherine Meyburgh
Best Documentary: War Against the Weak – Dir Justin Strawhand

FEATURE FILMS
International Film Guide Inspiration Award: The Other Bank – Dir. George Ovashili
Best South African Feature Award: – Gugu and Andile – Dir. Minky Schlesinger
Grand Prix Award: Eyes Wide Open – Dir. Haim Tabakman

Special Mention
1. Denise Newman for her searing performance in the title role of Oliver Hermanus’ Shirley Adams. She offers a moving account of a life that lies behind news stories about gang violence. Shirley Adams’ heroism is not the stuff of Hollywood filmmaking. There is no crusade against gun culture or a successful battle to stop the violence that is tearing communities apart. Her bravery lies in facing each day with the determination to survive it. Denise Newman presents us with the real face of motherhood; with the smallest of gestures that underpin her anguish and pain, she captures the spirit of a woman who will go to any lengths for her child and whose resilience knows no bounds.
2. Heikki Nousiainen for conveying the frailty of age, in his role as a priest desperate to finding meaning, in Klaus Härö’s Letters to Father Jacob. When a blind priest opens his doors to an ex-convict, peace returns to his life as he can continue his communication with the outside world through letters to his parishioners. Heikki Nousiainen’s quiet performance subtly details the everyday existence of this private man who, as he comes to the end of his life, wants nothing more than to serve his god. It is a performance of grace and humility that befits such an involving story.

AUDIENCE AWARD
Master Harold…and the Boys – Dir Lonny Price

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THE 2010 EDITION:

The organisers of the 2010 Cape Winelands Film Festival (CWFF) are proud to present an unparalleled window on quality films from around the globe. The rich selection of world cinema includes features, documentaries and shorts, which have won over 300 international awards combined.

Judged by the international response the Cape Winelands Film Festival’s short film competition has developed into the most important film festival platform in South Africa for quality productions from around the world. More than 50 outstanding short films form part of our selection, especially work from Canada, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and France. Brilliant shorts such as Next Floor, The Devil’s in the Details, Danse Macabre, Babylon 2084, Under My Garden, Muro and Behind the Dunes should not be missed by movie lovers, film students and filmmakers!

The festival remains an important forum for South African cinema, Six South African features will compete with films from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe in the feature film competition. The opening night film, Master Harold …and the Boys, an adaptation of a play by Athol Fugard, will have its world premiere in the open air amphitheatre at Spier estate in the Cape Winelands district near Stellenbosch. We are grateful for Spier Films and in particular producers Zaheer Goodman-Bhyat and Michael Auret for making these screenings in the beautiful Cape Winelands possible.

The multi award-winning Shirley Adams is also in competition, as well as four new local features: Darrell Roodt’s Jakhalsdans, Minky Schlesinger’s sensitive drama Gugu and Andile, Darfur, a hard-hitting drama about the violence in Sudan, as well as I now pronounce you Black and White.

Apart from selected screenings in the Cape Winelands district, the 2010 edition will once again feature screenings in the historic independent art cinema of the Labia Theatre, as well as the CityVarsity Cinema and Iziko Museum in the city centre of Cape Town.

The CWFF will once again include a focus on the exciting developments in current Brazilian cinema, especially due to the wonderful dedication of Mr. Joaquim A. Whitaker Salles, Consul General of Brazil in Cape Town. Remarkable films such as The Eye of the Storm/No Meu Lugar and December once again confirm the richness of contemporary Brazilian cinema.

The festival includes a strong focus on the environment. An international and local documentary programme has been carefully selected to raise consciousness regarding global warming and the impact on the environment. Highlights include Iceman: The Lewis Gordon Pugh Story, Uranium Road and the brilliant Shelter in Place. Uplifting success stories regarding environmental conservation such as Gorillas: A Journey for Survival, The Return of the Musk Ox and Nature of life complement the selection.
The Oscar winner The Cove is also part of the selection.

One of the highlights of the CWFF is the first ever South African focus on the rich film cultures from the Baltic States (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia). Official entries from Estonia and Lithuania for the 2010 Oscar competition are among the Baltic selection: Powerful period dramas such as December Heat and Taarka, as well as the visually stunning Vortex! Documentaries like The Singing Revolution and Disco and Atomic War provide unparalleled historical perspectives on the changes in Estonia during the past century. Apart from the Baltic focus excellent features and documentaries from Nordic countries, as well as Eastern European include the epic war drama St George shoots the Dragon and the very moving The Heart of the Wise Lives in the House of Sorrow from Serbia; the delightful Wedding in Bessarabia from Romania (which currently enjoys a cinematic New Wave); the multi-award winning drama The Other Bank from Georgia and the last film by the great Russian director Sergei (War and Peace) Bondarchuk, the epic Quiet flows the Don, starring Rupert Everett, F. Murray Abraham and Delphine Forest.

Various perspectives by young Palestinian, Israeli and Egyptian filmmakers regarding life in Palestine and Israel have been captured in impressive documentaries such as Jerusalem Moments, Another Way, Shunned and Of Flesh and Blood. Two features, Herman and The Smell of Apples vividly focus on the Kurdish people of Iraq.

The organisers of the CWFF are honoured to pay tribute to the great British filmmaker Terence Davies with screenings of his most famous films: The Long Day Closes, The House of Mirth, The Terence Davies Trilogy, Of Times and the City, as well as Distant Voices, Still Lives. To date Davies has won 13 international awards and has been nominated for another 15. As a filmmaker, Davies is noted for his recurring themes of emotional (and sometimes physical) endurance, the influence of memory on everyday life and the potentially crippling effects of dogmatic religiosity on the emotional life of individuals and societies. Stylistically, Davies’ works are notable for their symmetrical compositions, « symphonic » structure and measured pace. He is also the sole screenwriter of all his films. Of Time and the City, which was premiered out of competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim, will also be screened at Spier’s amphitheatre. The magnificent film uses vintage newsreel footage, contemporary popular music and a narration by Davies himself as a bittersweet paean to his hometown of Liverpool. It has received rave reviews on its premiere. Of Time and the City is both a love song and a eulogy to Liverpool. It is also a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it toll.

The CWFF will also pay tribute to the French master of cinema, Alain Resnais, who received a Life time achievement award at the 2009 Cannes film festival. The focus includes classics such as Hiroshima Mon amour, My American Uncle (starring Gerard Depardieu) as well as recent films by this great filmmaker. A selection of contemporary French shorts and features,
such as the multi-award winning drama A Prophet, complements the Resnais tribute.

Movie lovers shouldn’t miss the great films from the Netherlands and Belgium at the festival such as Scum.

Soccer is the theme of several documentaries and shorts: Streetball, Black Star: An African Football Odyssey, Mapi Liberia, Africa10, Soccerman as well as Over the Fence.

Once again various sponsors, media partners and individuals ensured the continuation of the festival: The City of Cape Town; the Protea Hotel Group; Ludi Kraus and the staff of the Labia; Spier Films and especially Zaheer Goodman-Bhyat and Michael Auret; Laurence Mitchell and the Cape Film Commission; Joaquim A. Whitaker Salles, Consul General of Brazil in Cape Town, the British Consulate General, UK Film Council, the Italian Embassy, the French Embassy, Culturesfrance, IFAS, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Commonwealth Foundation, Evert Lombaert and the CityVarsity School of Media and Creative Arts, The Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, Angela van Schalkwyk and Screen Africa; Yoram Allon, Ian Haydn Smith and Sara Tyler from International Film Guide, Laetitia Pople (Die Burger), Theresa Smith (The Star), Kevin Kriedeman (Call Sheet) and Lilian Baksalevowicz (FilmContact.com).

In particular one would like to thank International Film Guide and editor Ian Haydn Smith, widely recognised as the definitive annual review of world cinema providing unrivalled coverage of filmmaking and international film festivals in more than 120 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The CWFF will be the first African film festival to include the International Film Guide Inspiration Award in this year’s edition of the festival.

The award will be given to an emerging filmmaker (South African or international) at the film festival. The International Film Guide Inspiration Award, presented by Wallflower Press, the largest independent film book publisher in the UK, and the Criterion Collection, the leading distributor of classic world cinema, is a unique prize of film books, reference guides and film DVDs designed to provide emerging filmmakers at the start of their careers with inspiration from some of world’s most iconic filmmakers, including Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut, Fritz Lang, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Jim Jarmusch, Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Todd Haynes, Terrence Malick, Mike Leigh, Roman Polanski, Chris Marker, Ang Lee, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Lars von Trier and Lindsay Anderson.

With regard to other partnerships it is important to mention that the organisers of the famous African Film Festival of Leuven (AFF), currently in its 14th year, are going to sign a cooperation agreement with the CWFF at this year’s edition. Few African films are shown in Belgian cinemas. The main purpose of the AFF is to ensure that quality films from Africa, including South Africa, can be viewed in the regular theatre circuit or on television. Therefore, organising an event or festival is a means to this purpose. The AFF is a non profit organisation, which wishes to construct a circuit which offers a financial guarantee to the distributors the AFF co-operates with. This circuit is currently incomplete but does form the basis of a larger circuit in Flanders/Belgium. The aim is to guarantee at least 50 screenings so that a distributor can launch an African movie without great financial risk.

The final schedule and programme can be downloaded at

http://films-for-africa.co.za/

Programmes are also available at the Labia theatres.

Leon van der Merwe
Festival Director
Cape Winelands Film Festival
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Since the first edition the Cape Winelands Film Festival (CWFF) has significantly grown in size and international participation. More than 70 features, documentaries and short films from over 35 countries were in competition during 2009. More than130 productions formed part of the festival programme, in total 62 features, 27 documentaries and 44 shorts from more than 35 countries. The 2nd edition of the festival had 32 international guests. The festival had more than 300 screenings in March 2009.

The main objective of the CWFF is to provide a window on world cinemas. Highlights during 2009 included a focus on the cinemas of Egypt, Israel, Brazil, Italy, Iran, as well as the former Yugoslavia (Balkan states). South African movie lovers had an opportunity to see a rich diversity of films from more than 35 countries including Brazil, the USA, Canada, Egypt, Iran, Israel, the UK, Netherlands, Portugal, Chile, Cuba, Italy, France, Thailand, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Russia, Serbia, Rwanda and South Africa.

The festival also aims to build a rich film culture among South African audiences by celebrating great achievements of the past. During the first edition of the Cape Winelands Film festival the oeuvres of giants of the cinema such as Ingmar Bergman, Youssef Chahine and Ousmane Sembene have been highlighted. The intension is to create an awareness of past and present milestones in world cinema. The festival again paid homage to the great Egyptian master, Youssef Chahine, who past away during 2008. His famous Alexandria… Why?, a brilliant blend of autobiographical concerns and a portrait of Egypt was screened for the first time at a South African film festival.

The festival organisers were also delighted to include a tribute to the great Portugese director, Manoel de Oliveira, an international film treasure. During 2008 De Oliveira was honoured at the Cannes Film Festival with a Palme d’Or for his lifetime career achievement in film, which spans more than five decades. Born on December 12, 1908, in the northern Portuguese city of Porto, De Oliveira began his directorial film career in the 1930s. Since he had turned 80 years old the master of Portuguese cinema directed more than 19 feature length films, some of them masterpieces of recent European cinema. De Oliveira is famous for his cinematic adaptations of literary work by Camilo Castelo Branco (1862-1890), José Régio (1899-1969) en Agustina Bessa-Luís (1922-), as well as his use of theatrical conventions in his films.

The organisers also celebrated the work of the great African director, Idrissa Ouédraogo, winner of various international awards at major festivals such as Cannes, Berlin and FESPACO. His great films, Tilai, Yaaba, Anger of the Gods and the small gem La Mangue, which forms part of the powerful compilation film Stories on Human Rights, were screened in collaboration with M-Net’s African Film Library and the African Cinema Unit at the University of Cape Town.

Apart from the current partnerships with the City of Cape Town, M-Net’s African Film Library and the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town the festival organisers have formed new exciting partnerships with various international institutions, which will result in a rich blend of retrospectives, competition components and workshops.

Please visit http://films-for-africa.co.za/

More than 70 features, documentaries and short films from over 35 countries were in competition during 2009. More than 130 productions formed part of the festival programme, in total 62 features, 27 documentaries and 44 shorts from more than 35 countries. The 2nd edition of the festival had 32 international guests. The festival had more than 300 screenings in March 2009.