Roger Hawkins | |
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Born | Harare, Zimbabwe |
Nationality | Zimbabwean |
Alma mater | University of Natal |
Occupations |
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Notable work | The Legend of the Sky Kingdom |
Roger Hawkins is a Zimbabwean director and film producer best known for films such as The Legend of the Sky Kingdom (2003), The Silent Fall (2006) and The Lion of Judah (2009). [1]
Born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, Hawkins graduated with a BSc degree in agriculture from the University of Natal. [2] After earning his BSc, he became a school teacher, advertising copywriter, fumigator, soil surveyor, research assistant, lounge pianist and landscape gardener. [2] Hawkins resigned from his job as a math teacher in 1993 to pursue a career in the performing arts. He staged a musical he wrote and directed called The Singer. [1] Following the success of The Singer, Hawkins produced the TV series Adventure Unlimited and the television film Choose Freedom. [2] He studied directing at the independent film school Raindance Film Festival. [2] Hawkins directed the 60-minute TV film Dr Juju, which was shot in six days. [2]
In 2003, Hawkins released his full-length animated feature film The Legend of the Sky Kingdom . [3] It was made in Harare and pioneered a technique called "junkmation". [3] The film was chosen among the top five of 1,300 entries at the World Animation Festival in France. [3] Hawkins worked with fifteen people and spent four years making the film. [3] The characters and sets in the film were made from discarded items such as car parts, tools, kitchen utensils, pipes and pieces of wood. [3]
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 15 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most common. Beginning in the 9th century, during its late Iron Age, the Bantu people built the city-state of Great Zimbabwe; the city-state became one of the major African trade centres by the 11th century, controlling the gold, ivory and copper trades with the Swahili coast, which were connected to Arab and Indian states. By the mid 15th century, the city-state had been abandoned. From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, followed by the Rozvi and Mutapa empires.
Harare, originally known as Salisbury, is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan area in 2019. Situated in north-eastern Zimbabwe in the country's Mashonaland region, Harare is a metropolitan province, which also incorporates the municipalities of Chitungwiza and Epworth. The city sits on a plateau at an elevation of 1,483 metres above sea level and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category.
Henry Khaaba Olonga is a Zimbabwean former cricketer, who played Test and One Day International (ODI) cricket for Zimbabwe. In domestic first-class cricket in Zimbabwe, Olonga played for Matabeleland, Mashonaland and Manicaland. When he made his Test debut in January 1995, he was the first black cricketer and the youngest person to play for Zimbabwe. He was a regular member of the Zimbabwe team from 1998 to 2003. He featured in three World Cup tournaments in 1996, 1999 and 2003. During his playing days, he formed a rivalry against former Indian veteran batsman Sachin Tendulkar whenever Zimbabwe and India played against each other in international cricket. He was also regarded as Zimbabwe cricket's poster boy.
Tsitsi Dangarembga is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world. She has won other literary honours, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the PEN Pinter Prize. In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2022, Dangarembga was convicted in a Zimbabwe court of inciting public violence, by displaying, on a public road, a placard asking for reform.
Robert Ralph Minkoff is an American filmmaker. He is best known for co-directing The Lion King, and live-action films including Stuart Little (1999), Stuart Little 2 (2002), The Haunted Mansion (2003), and The Forbidden Kingdom (2008). In recent decades, he returned to feature animation with Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) and Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022). His wife, Crystal Kung Minkoff, is a cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Sally Cecilia Hawkins is an English actress who began her career on stage and then moved into film. She has received several awards including a Golden Globe Award and the Berlin International Film Festival's Silver Bear for Best Actress, with nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Academy Awards, and two British Academy Film Awards.
François Verster is an independent South African film director and documentary maker.
The Legend of the Sky Kingdom is a 2003 animated feature film directed by Roger Hawkins. Produced in Harare, Zimbabwe, the film was the first full-length animated feature film to come out of Africa. It was based on a children's book of the same name by Phil Cunningham, who was also the film's producer.
Levi Martin Nyagura is a Zimbabwean academic. He was appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe in January 2003 and was subsequently reappointed for a second, third and a fourth term, the latter of which ended in mid 2018.
Eternal Pictures was an American film distribution company, which distributed Christian, family and documentary films. The company distributed Tugger: The Jeep 4X4 Who Wanted To Fly in South Africa, and distributed Wemmicks, The Storykeepers and Hermie and Friends in Brazil.
Lucian Gabriel Wiina Msamati is a British-Tanzanian actor. He played Salladhor Saan in HBO series Game of Thrones, and was the first black actor to play Iago in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2015 production of Othello.
Agnieszka Piotrowska is an author, academic and award-winning filmmaker, probably best known for her 2008 documentary Married to the Eiffel Tower, about women who fall in love with objects."
The Lion of Judah is a 2011 South African-American computer-animated Christian comedy-drama film produced by Animated Family Films, distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures and starring Scott Eastwood, Georgina Cordova, Sandi Patty, Anupam Kher, Michael Madsen, Alphonso McAuley, Omar Benson Miller, Vic Mignogna and Ernest Borgnine. It is the sequel to the Christmas short film Once Upon A Stable, taking place 30 years earlier in a Bethlehem stable as The Stable-Mates witness the birth of "The King". Lion of Judah had a limited release to theaters starting June 3, 2011, and a domestic DVD release Easter 2012.
Events in 2003 in animation.
Ferdinando Arnò is an Italian composer, arranger, producer and the founder of Quiet, please!, a recording studio and production company active in the recording and advertising field.
India-Zimbabwe relations are bilateral relations between India and Zimbabwe.
Barbara Makhalisa, also known by her married name as Barbara Nkala, is a teacher, Zimbabwean writer, Ndebele translator, novelist, editor and publisher, one of the earliest female writers published in Zimbabwe. She is the author of several books written in Ndebele, as well as in English, of which some have been used as school textbooks. Barbara is married to Shadreck Nkala. They have three adult children and six grandchildren.
Zimbabwe has an active film culture that includes films made in Zimbabwe during its pre- and post-colonial periods. Economic crisis and political crisis have been features of the industry. A publication from the 1980s counted 14 cinemas in Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare. According to a 1998 report only 15 percent of the population had been to a cinema. European and American films have been made on location in Zimbabwe as well as Indian films. American films are popular in Zimbabwe but face restrictions limiting their distribution.
Leroy Gopal, is a Zimbabwe-born South African actor, comedian and a voice artist. He is best known for his roles in the films Yellow Card and Strike Back.
On September 16, 1994, there was a UFO sighting outside Ruwa, Zimbabwe. 69 pupils at the Ariel School aged between six and twelve claimed that they saw one or more silver craft descend from the sky and land on a field near their school. One or more creatures dressed all in black then approached the children and telepathically communicated to them a message with an environmental theme, frightening the children and causing them to cry.