AFRIKAANS FILM ‘SKOONHEID’ WINS THE QUEER PALM 2011 OK, so ‘Skoonheid‘ didn’t win in its official category at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), BUT it has won the Queer Palm 2011! The award was presented to Capetonian director Oliver Hermanus at a ceremony on Cherie Cheri Beach in Cannes. “Thank you to the […]

Three South African short films have been selected for the prestigious Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, or Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, to be held in May in the river city of that name in the Ruhr region of Germany.   The films are Atrophy by Palesa Shongwe, Balance by Colleen Alborough and Steglitz House by Bridget Baker. The Kurzfilmtage is […]

One of the most moving and magical movies to come out of South Africa is going to be screened in London this weekend and Monday. “Life, Above All (Chanda’s Secret)” is a heartbreaking drama set in South Africa. In it, filmmaker Oliver Schmitz explores and offers insight into cultural taboos, adolescence and religion through the […]

by Janine Erasmus South Africa’s beloved canine icon Jock of the Bushveld has again been immortalised on film, this time in an animated 3D version which, if director Duncan MacNeillie has his way, is set for international distribution. MacNeillie will travel to Los Angeles at the end of November 2010 to present the film to […]

Jann Turner South African hit movie White Wedding is now showing in the US to rave reviews. Jann Turner, who directed and jointly wrote and produced the film, writes about the place that inspired it – South Africa. Are there lions in the streets? Do you live in a mud hut? How come you ain’t […]

by Nicky Rehbock Prof Alice Walker has arrived in South Africa to deliver the 11th annual lecture honouring the late Stephen Bantu Biko, an anti-apartheid activist and leader who founded the Black Consciousness Movement. Walker, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Colour Purple, was invited to the country by the Steve Biko Foundation, […]

by Janine Erasmus South African film Themba: A Boy Called Hope, directed by Pretoria-born Stefanie Sycholt, has scooped the Unicef Child Rights Award at the 2010 Zanzibar International Film Festival (Ziff). (Scroll down for video trailer.) Sycholt received the prize from Unicef Germany board member Anne Luetkes at the film’s premiere in Cologne on 1 […]

by Jennifer Stern Walking is much more than a way to get from A to B. It’s a meditation and a pilgrimage. The late Boudewijn Wegerif, a Swede who walked from Stockholm to Cape Town in 1999 to protest world debt, called walking “brain aerobics.” He maintained that the regular movement of your left leg […]

Eish. The World Cup Concert got off to a pretty good start. But due to a combination of factors, the middle bit (on right now) has steadily put a lot of viewers to sleep…who are now only staying awake to watch Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) performed by Shakira and featuring Freshlyground. It could […]

Here’s a special peek into new book “Should I Stay or Should I Go – To live in or leave South Africa”, taken from the Introduction by author and publisher Tim Richman: This is neither a pro-South Africa book nor an anti-South Africa book. It is a book about emigration in the South African context, […]

A new book about emigrating from SA has been released that’s sure to stir the conversation at braais and dinner parties in South Africa and across the globe: Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Yes, it’s a song by The Clash, but it’s also a defining question for the modern Rainbow Nation and now, […]

by Nosimilo Ramela New York’s prestigious Tribeca Film Festival has named the South African film Father Christmas Doesn’t Come Here its best narrative short film in an indigenous language. Funded by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) the film was chosen from 47 finalists as one of the Indigenous Language short film contest winners. […]

by Bongani Nkosi Jakhalsdans, a new South African film, has become an almost instant box office hit, setting new standards for the Afrikaans-language movies. The feature film, which opened in South African cinemas on 23 April, earned R600 000 (US$80 123) in its opening weekend, making it the most popular Afrikaans motion picture since the […]

by Nosimilo Ramela A new South African film is set to draw crowds to cinemas this May. Billed as the country’s biggest romantic comedy yet, I Now Pronounce You Black and White uses humour to explore the delicate and often fraught issue of inter-racial relationships. (View Trailer). The film is set in Cape Town, in […]

Feast your eyes on a few choice photos from the Academy Awards, held at Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, last night. Pics include a radiant Charlize Theron; Matt Damon on the red carpet with his wife Luciana Barroso; Morgan Freeman with Invictus producer Lori McCreary and Morgan’s daughter Morgana Freeman. We’ve also added in some non-South […]

In case you missed our live streaming page…here’s a screengrab of Charlize arriving at the Oscars! Read more about the South African nominations and view the streaming video.

by Jenni Baxter Oscar Fever’s mounting with just hours (minutes…) to go until the 82 annual Academy Awards kicks off tonight. Here’s a breakdown of the most important awards to watch if you’re South African and LIVE STREAMING of the Oscars below: ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE Who We Want to Win: Morgan Freeman in […]

by Jenni Baxter Invictus is already chalking up a number of accolades. The Hollywood movie about the role that Nelson Mandela and rugby hero Francois Pienaar played in bringing a nation together through sport, has been nominated for various awards – including the  Oscards and Golden Globes – and, with its recent Board of Review […]

South Africans featured in “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel (winner of The Man Booker Prize 2002) OK, so they’re not exactly South African people, but a whole colony of meerkats appear in the middle of Pi’s survival adventure in the Pacific Ocean. “But it was the meerkats that impressed themselves most indelibly on my […]