http://www.dogonland.com/blog/ Comments on pan-african life en-us Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:47:37 -0600 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:47:37 -0600 Dogonland RSS by triplesmart http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/salles_linha_de_passe_premieres_at_2008_cannes.html Dir: Walter Salles , Daniela Thomas. Brazil-France. 2008. 108 mins.Solid and involving, if hardly ground-breaking, Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas's Linha de Passe is a complex and gritty drama about a working-class family's struggles in the streets and on the football fields of soccer-crazy Sao Paolo. Reunited with his co-director on 1996's Foreign Land, Salles offers a well-knit multi-strander that vividly evokes the rigours of keeping body and soul together in Brazil's biggest city, while offering a down-to-earth alternative to the more romantic and stylistically flashy films (City . . . Thu, 29 May 2008 22:13:50 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/salles_linha_de_passe_premieres_at_2008_cannes.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/south_african_filmmakers_unite_against_racism_.html (from Screen Africa) A group of South African film professionals have formed a collaborative called Filmmakers Against Racism to produce a series of anti-xenophobia public service announcements (PSAs) in response to the horrific xenophobic attacks that have been raging in Gauteng?s informal settlements for more than 10 days. The group consists of Rehad Desai of Uhuru , Neil Brandt of Luma Films , Desiree Markgraaff of the Bombshelter , Eve Rantseli of Women of the Son , Born Free Media and actor/director, Xoliswa Sithole**. According to Brandt, more and more filmmakers and compani . . . Fri, 23 May 2008 21:36:04 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/south_african_filmmakers_unite_against_racism_.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/noel_clarkegrows_up_w_adulthood.html Directors of color worldwide are up against the directorial typecast that originated with American director, Spike Lee; a yoke he's finally pulled off--now appreciated by Hollywood as a trailblazer and a bona fide cinema auteur. Spike is truly a survivor, having withstood the "controversy" subtext always applied when describing his work and artistic vision. So those coming after him are conveniently labeled "urban, gritty, and controversial because they "deal with race" thus the market abides and if their films survive major film festivals, they will surely end up at the very "urban" Magic Joh . . . Thu, 15 May 2008 20:18:09 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/noel_clarkegrows_up_w_adulthood.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/heart_of_fire_feuerherz_premieres__berlin_film_festival.html In an ever-increasing vein of war/death/corruption cinema stories that come "Out of Africa" (no pun intended), Produced by BetaCinema , Luigia Farloni's film Heart of Fire ("Feuerherz" in Italian) is the true story of Senait Mehari, who came of age as a young girl soldier during the Eritrean Civil War . Set in the early 1980s, the film charts the recruitment of Awet (played by Letekidan Micael) and her older sister into a militia battling a rival faction also opposed to Ethiopian occupation.A European director telling the story of African liberation struggle based on a memoir that "inspired . . . Wed, 14 May 2008 17:47:05 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/heart_of_fire_feuerherz_premieres__berlin_film_festival.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/pray_the_devil_back_to_hell__2008_tribeca_film_festival.html "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," a documentary about the role women played in ending civil war in Liberia, won the top doc at the Seventh Annual (2008) Tribeca Film Festival .  Directed by the American filmmaker Gini Reticker of Fork Films Production, chronicles the story of how thousands of women helped turned the tide of violence in Liberia through sit-ins and other peaceful protests. After years of war that killed 250,000, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected president in 2005. Said the festival jury: "In a relentless pursuit of peace, the women of Liberia show us how community, mo . . . Sat, 10 May 2008 13:47:59 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/pray_the_devil_back_to_hell__2008_tribeca_film_festival.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/daniel_sukie_nartey_comes_of_age.html A 2008 Tribeca Film Festival Official Selection is Disruptive Element's documentary, Zoned In--Daniella Zanzotto's peek at a inner-city teen's transformation from a drug dealer's son to a Brown University grad.  And what made this documentary particularly interesting was Zanzotto follows her subject for 9 years.Daniel "Sukie" Nartey II has two older brothers in prison, became a father at fifteen, close to being a high school drop-out and then an incredible journey starts. Over the course of nine years,  Zanzotto accompanies Daniel Nartey on a path that takes him from William F . . . Thu, 08 May 2008 12:51:46 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/daniel_sukie_nartey_comes_of_age.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/glow_of_white_womendocu_by_south_african_yunus_vally.html OK, here?s the story of a black librarian who lived and worked in post-apartheid (yea, we know in name only) South Africa in 2000. She lived in the Mpumalanga Province with a very sweet extended family in a small community very close to the Mozambique border and the Kingdom of Lesotho. She was also very close to the crash site turned stark memorial to Marxist-thumping Samora Machel -- 35 steel cylinders symbolizing the number of lives lost in the air crash, plane fuselage at all; a tourist destination not easily forgotten.The big city was Nelspruit, an oddly eerie ?county seat? type of . . . Thu, 01 May 2008 10:22:44 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/glow_of_white_womendocu_by_south_african_yunus_vally.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/fugards_sizwe_banzi_is_dead_back_on_stage_after_30_years.html Sizwe Banzi is Dead is the second of three ?Township Plays? created by Athol Fugard with actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona. These plays are based on the everyday life of the urban black community in South Africa during Apartheid. Sizwe Banzi is Dead was first performed in 1972, four years before the Sharpeville Massacre , 8 years after Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.                                     & . . . Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:41:58 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/fugards_sizwe_banzi_is_dead_back_on_stage_after_30_years.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/the_dhamma_brothers__vipasanna_meditation_does_hard_time.html   PRISON MONKSA woman brings Buddhist meditation to an Alabama prisonBy Amre Klimchak (from New York Press) The Dhamma Brothers Directed by Jenny Phillips, Andy Kukura and Anne Marie Stern at Cinema Village If you asked the average Bible Belt denizen to volunteer for a 10-day Buddhist meditation course that requires them to remain silent, live according to a strict regimen in a confined area and spend 10 hours a day sitting motionless and reflecting, you?d probably get more than strange looks. E . . . Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:33:10 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/the_dhamma_brothers__vipasanna_meditation_does_hard_time.html http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/dogonland_remembrance_aim_fernand_david_csaire.html  Aimé Fernand David Césaire (26 June 1913 ? 17 April 2008)"Negritude" was coined by Césaire in his Cahier d?un retour au pays natal (1939) and it means, in his words, "the simple recognition of the fact that one is black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as blacks, of our history and culture." Even in its beginnings Negritude was truly an international movement--drawing inspiration from the flowering of African-American culture brought about by the writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance while asserting its place in the canon of French literature, glorifying th . . . Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:15:07 -0600 http://www.dogonland.com/posts/view/dogonland_remembrance_aim_fernand_david_csaire.html