Stars: Canada Lee, Charles Carson, Sidney Poitier, Joyce Carey, Geoffrey Keen, Vivien Clinton, Michael Goodliffe, Albertina Temba, Edric Connor, Lionel Ngakane, Charles McRae | Written by John Howard Lawson | Directed by Zoltan Korda
Released in celebration of Black History Month, Studio Canal reveal this 4k Restoration of the seminal British classic from 1951, Cry, The Beloved Country. Not only do you get the 4k restoration of the movie from director Zoltan Korda, but there’s also new extras, and archive footage including a documentary on cinema under apartheid and a 16-page booklet.
So, why is the movie so important? Now over 70 years old, it features a moving, and emotional story, played out by some fabulous actors and, it feels very much ahead of its time covering the racial injustices of the period.
Cry, The Beloved Country was shot on location in South Africa (with interior shots in the U.K.), which was...
Released in celebration of Black History Month, Studio Canal reveal this 4k Restoration of the seminal British classic from 1951, Cry, The Beloved Country. Not only do you get the 4k restoration of the movie from director Zoltan Korda, but there’s also new extras, and archive footage including a documentary on cinema under apartheid and a 16-page booklet.
So, why is the movie so important? Now over 70 years old, it features a moving, and emotional story, played out by some fabulous actors and, it feels very much ahead of its time covering the racial injustices of the period.
Cry, The Beloved Country was shot on location in South Africa (with interior shots in the U.K.), which was...
- 10/12/2023
- by Alain Elliott
- Nerdly
Exclusive: South Africa’s Videovision Entertainment is heading to next week’s Mip Africa event with a new TV sales division.
The unit will bring a significant number of titles from South Africa, comprising over 100 feature films and more than 10,000 hours of television programs. Videovision is one the country’s oldest and most successful production houses.
Videovision’s CEO Anant Singh has secured a deal to represent e.tv’s daily soap House of Zwide, which the company produces. Other Videovision titles produced over the past four decades will also be included on the slate, with notable features include Sarafina!, starring Leleti Khumalo, Whoopi Goldberg and Miriam Makeba; Cry, the Beloved Country starring James Earl Jones, Richard Harris and Vusi Kunene; Red Dust starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor and directed by Tom Hooper; and Yesterday, which received South Africa’s first Academy Award nomination.
See a trailer for the slate here.
The unit will bring a significant number of titles from South Africa, comprising over 100 feature films and more than 10,000 hours of television programs. Videovision is one the country’s oldest and most successful production houses.
Videovision’s CEO Anant Singh has secured a deal to represent e.tv’s daily soap House of Zwide, which the company produces. Other Videovision titles produced over the past four decades will also be included on the slate, with notable features include Sarafina!, starring Leleti Khumalo, Whoopi Goldberg and Miriam Makeba; Cry, the Beloved Country starring James Earl Jones, Richard Harris and Vusi Kunene; Red Dust starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor and directed by Tom Hooper; and Yesterday, which received South Africa’s first Academy Award nomination.
See a trailer for the slate here.
- 9/1/2023
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Sidney Poitier walked among kings and earned Hollywood’s highest honors, but that didn’t stop the Federal Bureau of Investigation from keeping tabs on the actor and philanthropist via informants and surveillance tactics during the civil rights era, according to documents newly obtained by Rolling Stone. Poitier, who passed away at age 94 on January 6, 2022, had a career that lasted 75 years and was surveilled by the agency at the height of his fame.
Poitier’s FBI file – requested via the Freedom of Information Act – is 13 pages long, covering 1959 to 1963, with...
Poitier’s FBI file – requested via the Freedom of Information Act – is 13 pages long, covering 1959 to 1963, with...
- 2/26/2023
- by Jenn Dize
- Rollingstone.com
Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival
The devastation of AIDS on South Africa could not be captured more intimately and with more effect than Darrell James Roodt's new drama Yesterday.
The socially conscious director of such South African movies as Cry, The Beloved country and Dangerous Ground has now turned his attention to the HIV crisis in his motherland, and has conceived a moving, inspirational tale designed to spread the word.
Without a doubt, it's a message movie presented amidst majestic breath-taking landscape. But because he keeps the narrative low-key @ as well as investing the emotions in a very likeable lead character @ Yesterday maintains a political punch and reins in the tear-jerking schmaltz. It doesn't hurt that this is a wondrous picture visually making great use of the incredible expansive landscape to distil the personal intimate struggle of people facing obstacles beyond their control.
The film begins as a mother and her young daughter are walking across the harsh, dusty terrains of Zululand to try and see the doctor in a neighboring remote town. The trek takes hours and when they arrive, they are too late, the line is too long and the mother is told to come back when the doctor returns next week.
So, mother and daughter head home to their meager but placid village full of contented people and friendly neighbors. The selfless and dedicated woman assumes her bad cough will sooner or later go away. It doesn't. When she finally gets to see a physician she learns the dreaded virus has infected her body. Her husband, the obvious transmitter has been away from home fro months and is working in an underground mine in Johannesburg.
With little money, a shortage of health facilities and even less hope for optimism, the woman named Yesterday, because her father thought "things were better then," wills herself to stay strong so her last wish @ to survive long enough to see her daughter go to her first day of school @ is fulfilled. Meanwhile, the film tone grows darker as the ignorance and prejudices of villagers turn. Sociable neighbors now give them a cold shoulder.
The character of Yesterday is perhaps a little too saintly @ she is portrayed to be so pure of heart, she feels no malice even to the husband who gave her the disease and physically assaulted her when she informed him of the truth @ on the other hand this is the kind of proud black strong woman character that Oprah would approve and endorse if given a chance. "I am not brave, it is just the way things are," Yesterday explains in the film.
Starring in the lead is Leleti Khumalo, whose handsome face conveys a depth of dignity and soul, making her more than a do-good two-dimensional victim. She previously starred in the musical "Sarafina!". Acting with restraint, she makes the most touching scenes even more hearttugging.
In short, this is a simple elegant film. Yesterday is also the fist film to be presented completely in the Zulu language. Tragic and uplifting, Roodt leaves little doubt of where his allegiance lies. But for a cause this good, it's easy to forgive the film's dramatic faults.
YESTERDAY
HBO Films presents
In association with Distant Horizon and The Nelson Mandela Foundation
Credits:
Writer/Director: Darrell James Roodt
Producers: Anant Singh, Helena Spring
Director of photography: Michael Brierley
Production designer: Tiaan van Tonder
Costume designer: Darion Hing
Make-up and hair: Raine Edwards
Sound Designer: Jeremy Saacks
Cast:
Yesterday: Leleti Khumalo
Beauty: Lihle Mvelase
John Khumalo: Kenneth Kambule
Teacher: Harriet Lehabe
Clinic Doctor: Camilla Walker
Village Healer: Nandi Nyembe
In Zulu with English subtitles
No MPAA rating
Running time --- 93 minutes...
The devastation of AIDS on South Africa could not be captured more intimately and with more effect than Darrell James Roodt's new drama Yesterday.
The socially conscious director of such South African movies as Cry, The Beloved country and Dangerous Ground has now turned his attention to the HIV crisis in his motherland, and has conceived a moving, inspirational tale designed to spread the word.
Without a doubt, it's a message movie presented amidst majestic breath-taking landscape. But because he keeps the narrative low-key @ as well as investing the emotions in a very likeable lead character @ Yesterday maintains a political punch and reins in the tear-jerking schmaltz. It doesn't hurt that this is a wondrous picture visually making great use of the incredible expansive landscape to distil the personal intimate struggle of people facing obstacles beyond their control.
The film begins as a mother and her young daughter are walking across the harsh, dusty terrains of Zululand to try and see the doctor in a neighboring remote town. The trek takes hours and when they arrive, they are too late, the line is too long and the mother is told to come back when the doctor returns next week.
So, mother and daughter head home to their meager but placid village full of contented people and friendly neighbors. The selfless and dedicated woman assumes her bad cough will sooner or later go away. It doesn't. When she finally gets to see a physician she learns the dreaded virus has infected her body. Her husband, the obvious transmitter has been away from home fro months and is working in an underground mine in Johannesburg.
With little money, a shortage of health facilities and even less hope for optimism, the woman named Yesterday, because her father thought "things were better then," wills herself to stay strong so her last wish @ to survive long enough to see her daughter go to her first day of school @ is fulfilled. Meanwhile, the film tone grows darker as the ignorance and prejudices of villagers turn. Sociable neighbors now give them a cold shoulder.
The character of Yesterday is perhaps a little too saintly @ she is portrayed to be so pure of heart, she feels no malice even to the husband who gave her the disease and physically assaulted her when she informed him of the truth @ on the other hand this is the kind of proud black strong woman character that Oprah would approve and endorse if given a chance. "I am not brave, it is just the way things are," Yesterday explains in the film.
Starring in the lead is Leleti Khumalo, whose handsome face conveys a depth of dignity and soul, making her more than a do-good two-dimensional victim. She previously starred in the musical "Sarafina!". Acting with restraint, she makes the most touching scenes even more hearttugging.
In short, this is a simple elegant film. Yesterday is also the fist film to be presented completely in the Zulu language. Tragic and uplifting, Roodt leaves little doubt of where his allegiance lies. But for a cause this good, it's easy to forgive the film's dramatic faults.
YESTERDAY
HBO Films presents
In association with Distant Horizon and The Nelson Mandela Foundation
Credits:
Writer/Director: Darrell James Roodt
Producers: Anant Singh, Helena Spring
Director of photography: Michael Brierley
Production designer: Tiaan van Tonder
Costume designer: Darion Hing
Make-up and hair: Raine Edwards
Sound Designer: Jeremy Saacks
Cast:
Yesterday: Leleti Khumalo
Beauty: Lihle Mvelase
John Khumalo: Kenneth Kambule
Teacher: Harriet Lehabe
Clinic Doctor: Camilla Walker
Village Healer: Nandi Nyembe
In Zulu with English subtitles
No MPAA rating
Running time --- 93 minutes...
- 9/17/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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