Also see the follwoing write-ups:
Our Personality of the Week is Hugh Fraser who graduated from Wits University in 1987 with a degree in architecture. Growing up in apartheidsouthafrica, didn’t offer much opportunity for travel, which he yearned. With the opening of the stable door in 1990, he bolted.
Over the next 15 years, he divided his time between practice which eventually left him with an architectural gastrectomy; and travel and photography.
Eventually he fled clients and contractors and worked for the Cement and Concrete Institute promoting the concept of concrete architecture. He is currently employed by the PG Group, as the shard of glass, exploring exciting developments in glass architecture, which mirror technological advances in materiality.
For 20 years he has observed the built environment through film and digital photography. Almost without noticing, a huge archive has been amassed and the transition to digital photography has allowed us to change the way we view architectural photographic experiences. Time is not encapsulated like a video recording or a still, but a series of pictures that can stand alone; and when viewed as a sequence offer a refreshing unedited record of architecture.
Also on the shoe tonight is longstanding friend - and Capetonian!
- Nopdi Murphy.
She will discuss The Out in Africa SA Gay & Lesbian Film Festival which is turning 15 this year and bringing some reel buds to the big screen this spring!
The Festival reflects the significant changes that Gay cinema is undergoing by truly reflecting reality and ousting stereotypes, offering a broad choice of films ranging from comedy to documentary, feature films and shorts, local and international titles. Among the highlights are Eytan Foxs’ The Bubble, Jamie Babbit’s Itty Bitty Titty Committee, the award-winning XXY directed by Lucía Puenzo, the Oscar-nominated documentary For the Bible Tells Me So by Daniel Karslake, the hugely entertaining Times Have Been Better and Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin.
While our films and the panoply of topics they touch on entertain, panel discussions and especially our guests turn the festival into a unique inter-active experience. Our guests this year are Emmy-award winner Bennett Singer (Director of Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, an award-winning documentary selected by Justice Edwin Cameron. The film reveals the life of the gay man who mentored Reverend Martin Luther King. Cameron will attend some of the screenings and engage with the director and Rustin’s life partner Walter Naegle, also a guest of the Festival.
Lisa Thrasher (Producer of Itty Titty Bitty Committee) is an Independent Film Producer and serves as the President of Film Production & Distribution for POWER UP (Professional Organisation of Women in Entertainment Reaching UP) – she will be running a Producer’s Seminar in Johannesburg and Cape Town, which are free and open to all – see the printed programme and website www.oia.co.za for further details.
Also in attendance will be Jamie Babbit, the Director of Itty Titty Bitty Committee. Babbit has enjoyed success as a television producer/director, serving as both for the WB television series Popular, as well as directing episodes of critically acclaimed shows such as Ugly Betty, the L Word, Alias, Nip/Tuck, Malcolm in the Middle and The Gilmore Girls.
Must see movies:
25 Cent Preview
A gritty, ‘in the moment’ gallop through the red-light district of San Francisco, this is a journey into the uncensored life, loves and tricks of its street hustlers. Honest, riveting performances and a fast pace ensures compelling viewing that reveals far more humanity and understanding than you would expect.
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Shy, heartbroken Anna is a plastic surgeon’s receptionist. Her life is transformed when the office is defaced by sexy Sadie, a member of the underground women’s rights faction C(i)A or Clits in Action. Pulsating with a radical brand of gender politics accompanied by grungy, punk lesbian-rock, this loud, feisty activist comedy is an endearing introduction to dissident feminist groups and the ‘ballsy’ female anarchists who run them.
The Bubble
Hottie Israeli Noam and gorgeous Palestinian Ashraf drive this captivating ode to transcendental love – sexual, familial, and platonic – that encapsulates the surreal lives lived by young gays and straights, Jews and Arabs, men and women in Israel today. From the director of Yossi and Jagger.
Outing Riley
Laid-back and cleverly crafted, this light amusing coming-out family comedy disarms stereotypes and expectations of what a gay man is meant to be and how he is meant to act.
Times Have Been Better
In imitable quirky French style, the proud liberal parents of thirty-something banker Jeremy descend into crisis when he celebrates moving into a new house with his older, long-term boyfriend by finally announcing to the family that he is gay.
Savage Grace
Careening from New York in 1946 to London in 1972, via Paris and Spain, this true story with a stellar cast (Julianne Moore, Eddie Redmayne) charts one family’s descent from decadence into a dysfunction that would make Jerry Springer proud.
XXY
Living in a coastal Uruguayan town ‘problem’ teen Alex has been isolated and protected by her parents. A top plastic surgeon comes to assist with a solution. While the adults agonise over the conundrum of Alex’ gender, she and the surgeon’s closeted son get on with their own exploration of sexuality and identity. Beautifully shot, sparsely scripted, with stellar performances.
Documentaries:
For The Bible Tells Me So
In this thorough, positive and ultimately hopeful documentary, the filmmaker presents the complex subject of homosexuality and religion through personal and intellectual arguments that encourages people to examine their beliefs rather than mindlessly accept the preaching of others.
Panel discussions will be held after screenings in both JHB and CT – see printed programme and website for details.
The Festival is funded by:
The Atlantic Philanthropies, National Film and Video Foundation, Italian Institute of Culture, Goethe Institut, British Council, Cape Film Commission, Nu Metro, Exclusive Books, Killarney Mall.
http://www.oia.co.za/15TH OUT IN AFRICA SA GAY & LESBIAN FILM FESTIVAL
Johannesburg Thu 4th – Sun 14th September 2008
Nu Metro - Killarney Mall
Cape Town Thu 11th – Sun 21st September 2008
Nu Metro - V&A Waterfront
www.oia.co.za ▪ 021 461 40 27 ▪ info@oia.co.za
"My life has been a journey; I have visited the devil’s den and landed in the enchanted magical garden. This is a story that will capture your imagination, as I take you through the life of a gay man living in South Africa in the early 1980s and enduring arrest. I had a childhood of living with an alcoholic father and with a sibling that sexually molested me over a six-year period. I was forced to complete two years of National Service in apartheid South Africa and witnessed horrific events in the townships whilst doing compulsory military camps along the way.
