AT THE start of the ’60s, film critics at the Cannes Film Festival started La Semaine de la Critique in reaction to a main programme which they saw as concentrating too much on mainstream Hollywood fare.
La Semaine de la Critique (Critics Week ) created a space for new voices, showcasing first and second-time film-makers from across the globe and over the past 50 years has launched auteurs such as Wong Kar-Wai, Ken Loach and Alejandro González Iñarritu.
Critics Week has grown into a global travelling programme but never had a curated presence on the African continent, until now. Urucu Media, one of South Africa’s newest film production companies, have partnered with the Cannes Film Festival to bring a selection of Critics Week films to our cinemas.
“We do believe there is an appetite for these kinds of films in South Africa,” said writer and director John Trengove of Urucu Media. The company’s first feature film, Necktie Youth, which premiered this week at the Durban International Film Festival (Diff), will open on our circuit later this year.
Trengove believes there is a local audience who want independent, auteur- based cinema and their company is interested in specialising in that niche: “To identify strong South African voices that can make interesting films that fall outside of the Hollywood formula.”
In addition to showing what is available, Urucu Media also want to stimulate the local industry and used Diff to announce the creation of a three-month residency aimed at African scriptwriters, Realness.
Urucu Media producer and founder, Elias Ribeiro, said they saw themselves as an author-driven company and wanted to produce emerging talents. The residency will host nine African scriptwriters in a remote location, depending on who comes in as a sponsor. They will be hosting thinktanks with local film-makers over the next month to discuss how best to structure the residency.
While they want to develop the two top scripts that come out of the residency, the other seven participants will also get to meet producers at next year’s Diff, and the residency is linked to the Critics Week initiative “because we are trying to harness an audience that takes a bit more risk when choosing what to watch and 54 years ago, that’s what they did; created a platform for bold, independent, brave cinema,” said Ribeiro.
Trengove added that he didn’t think local lovers of film are exposed to alternative films so the Critics Week programme was an attempt to recultivate an audience.
He sees the films – which will screen over a weekend early next month in Cape Town and Joburg – as not just a way to expose the audience, but also to show potential directors new trends in film-making: “So many South African film-makers make films in a void, they are not aware of what other film-makers make. It is naive to think I can just sit in my living room and dream up a story and it will reach the audience.”
Check www.urucumedia.com for the programme details and info on the residency.
l The following films will screen at Rosebank Nouveau in Joburg and the V&A Waterfront Nouveau in Cape Town:
Hope (France, 2014, 91 min): Documentary director Boris Lojkine makes his fictional debut by tackling the topic of migration from Africa to Europe. July 31 at 8pm.
Salvo (Italy/France, 2013, 110 min): The winner of La Semaine de la Critique of Cannes Film Festival last year, by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, it tells the story of a merciless bodyguard/hit man in Sicily’s underworld, Salvo (Saleh Bakri), who meets the blind sister of one of his victims. (August 1, 5.30pm).
Suzanne (France, 2013, 94 min): Writer and director Katel Quillévéré’s second feature follows Suzanne (Sara Forestier) during 25 years of her life. (August 1, 8pm).
The Kindergarten Teacher (Israel, 2014, 120 min): Directed by Nadava Lapid, this tells the story of a crèche teacher and aspiring poet, Nira (Sarit Larry), who discovers unusual poetic talent in her 5-year-old student, Yoav (Avi Shnaidman). (August 2, 5.30pm).
You and the Night (France, 2013, 92 min): Yann Gonzalez starts his feature film career with an erotic existential queer comedy that explores and intentionally confuses memory and fantasy, starring French footballer Eric Cantona as a stud/former child-poet, one of seven members of a meticulously cast orgy. (August 2, 8pm).