I never have. I should have gone to some of the showings from the Las Vegas film festival when I lived there, but I guess I was too busy with law school at the time.
I was looking at the lineup of the San Francisco Film Festival and it seems cool, like something you might plan a vacation around. There's a big-screen showing of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST I would have loved to see, and a screening of THE LOST WORLD (1925) with a new score. And of course there were tons of new films that sounded great from the descriptions, but probably suck in reality. Still, it's cool to window shop and imagine that these are all great films that are much better than anything playing at the Cineplex 20!
So what about you? Have you ever gone to a film festival? How was it?
We (the SA Film Archives) normally assist with or host quite a few festivals throughout the year ~ the major one for me anyway, is the yearly Volksblad Arts Festival, which is held in the Orange Free State in July in the dead of winter. It gets cold enough there (in the minus degrees!!) to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, I can tell you.
I usually do the projection myself and also have a chat to the audience before I screen the film. When a member of the audience stands up and starts talking to the others, the looks on some of their faces are priceless. One person asked me to please sit down as they wanted to see the film.
You know that I’m about to drive four hundred miles down there when I post a thread whose subject line reads:
CHEEZEFLIX: YOUR NATIVE BEARERS ARE NEEDED ONCE AGAIN! This is all due to a joke made by buddy Cheeze in 2007 when he asked me why I bothered to drive down and said “Doesn’t Africa still have native bearers?”Cheeze: they didn’t turn up last year, my friend and I had to carry those films down there myself.
This year in July we’ll be screening the following:
10H00 ~ 12H00: DR KALIE Filmed in my mom’s hometown!! The touching story of a hobo who brings meaning to the life of all the people (and himself, indirectly) he encounters on his travels. (Ivan Hall, 1968)
14H00 ~ 16H00: PAPPALAP A heart-tugging story of a penniless sharecropper farmer who literally gives all he has to make his ugly duckling daughter the belle of the ball at the high school prom. (Jans Rautenbach, 1971)
18H00 ~ 20H00: DINGAKA A very serious film from a pioneer in comedy ~ an African tracks down his daughter’s killer in Johannesburg and becomes a fugitive from justice.
(Jamie Uys, 1964)
10H00 ~ 12H00: DIE RUITER IN DIE NAG AKA The Rider In The Night ~ a Afrikaner agent does double duty as a spy for the British during the Anglo-Boer War. A strange film this: a very serious war film with a good sense of humor. (Jan Perold, 1963)
14H00 ~ 16H00: DIE PROFESSOR & DIE PRIKKELPOP AKA The Professor And The Beauty Queen. Another one from Jamie Uys: a nerdish maths professor inadvertently becomes a judge at a beauty pageant. (Jamie Uys, 1966)
18H00 ~ 20H00: RIDE THE HIGH WIND A truly creepy film this: AKA “African Gold”. A pilot does a Sole Survivor / Flight of the Phoenix prang in the desert and discovers clues that might lead to a fortune in Anglo Boer War bullion. (David Millin ASC, 1965)
10H00 ~ 12H00: DAAR DOER IN DIE BOSVELD AKA: Faraway In The Bushveld. Jamie Uys’ first film and also the first film made in color in Africa, as well as the first film made here with optical trick FX. This film’s basic story gave rise to The Gods Must Be Crazy.
14H00 ~ 16H00: DANIE BOSMAN A biopic of the short tragic life of the talented SA music composer. (Elmo de Witt, 1969)
18H00 ~ 20H00: DOODKRY IS MIN Translation: They Can’t Keep Us Down. A very controversial film by Jamie Uys on the rise of the Afrikaner nation and their language. Last seen in public in 1961 and there are many reasons for it being in the archives unseen by anyone since then. (1961)
10H00 ~ 12H00: HIER’S ONS WEER Translation: Here We Are Again or It’s Us Again. A ghost scare comedy filmed not far from my home in Pretoria starring SA’s version of Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello, Al Debbo and Frederik Burgers. (1951, Hyman Kirstein)
14H00 ~ 16H00: LORD OOM PIET Oy yoy yoy, again with the Jamie Uys. SA’s first political comedy about an Afrikaans farmer who discovers that he is in fact a British lord. Hilarious is not the word for this comedic gem. (1962)
We'll be screening from 15 ~ 18 July: come see us!
18H00 ~ 20H00: FUNNY PEOPLE Jamie Uys’ hit candid camera comedy which he made with the assistance of Allen Funt.
