The Wooden Camera | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ntshavheni wa Luruli |
Written by | Yves Buclet Peter Speyer |
Produced by | Olivier Delahaye Richard Green Ben Woolford |
Starring | Junior Singo Dana de Agrella Innocent Msimango |
Cinematography | Gordon Spooner |
Edited by | Kako Kelber |
Distributed by | TLA Releasing |
Release date |
|
Running time | 92 min. |
Countries | South Africa France United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Wooden Camera is a 2003 South African film directed by Ntshavheni wa Luruli and starring Junior Singo, Dana de Agrella, and Innocent Msimango.
The film takes place in and around Cape Town and a nearby township, Khayelitsha. The film centers around two teenage friends, the younger Madiba (Junior Singo) and the elder Sipho (Innocent Msimango). One day, as they are playing alongside the railroad tracks, they find a dead body. With him they find a gun with one bullet and a video camera. Sipho takes the gun and Madiba takes the camera, which he puts inside a wooden toy camera to make it seem a not-working toy. Sipho seems to harmlessly joke about the gun at first, but begins spending more time in Cape Town, robbing parking meters and paying for glue to sniff. He eventually starts living in abandoned places in Cape Town with a group of thugs.
Madiba films the world around him, finding beauty in both Khayelitsha and Cape Town. He tries many filming techniques and is skilled, but finds his videos very personal and does not normally let other people see them. While in Cape Town, he meets and forges an unlikely friendship with a white Cape Town girl, Estelle (Dana de Agrella) from a rich family, who gets into conflict with her racist father about this. Sipho uses the gun to rob people. Madiba disapproves and does not want any of the stolen money, but still considers him his friend. One of Sipho's robberies goes wrong and he is killed. In the end Madiba and Estelle run off and take a train together.
The Learning Tree is a 1969 American coming-of-age film written, produced and directed by Gordon Parks, who also scored the film. It depicts the life of Newt Winger, a teenager growing up in Cherokee Flats, Kansas, in the 1920s and chronicles his journey into manhood marked with tragic events. Based on Parks' 1963 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, The Learning Tree was the first film directed by a black filmmaker for a major American film studio, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.
Places in the Heart is a 1984 American drama film written and directed by Robert Benton. It stars Sally Field, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Harris, Ray Baker, Amy Madigan, John Malkovich, Danny Glover, Jerry Haynes and Terry O'Quinn. The film follows Edna Spalding, a young woman during the Great Depression in Texas who is forced to take charge of her farm after the death of her husband and is helped by a motley bunch.
Spoons is a Canadian new wave band, formed in Burlington, Ontario in 1979. They recorded several Canadian chart hits between 1982 and 1989, and in 1983, they were nominated for Most Promising Group of the Year at the Juno Awards. Their most popular songs include "Romantic Traffic", "Nova Heart", "Old Emotions", and "Tell No Lies".
Dear Wendy is a 2005 crime film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and written by Lars von Trier. It stars Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Michael Angarano, Mark Webber, Danso Gordon, Novella Nelson and Alison Pill. It was an international co-production between Denmark, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, filmed on-location in Copenhagen.
Khayelitsha is a township in Western Cape, South Africa, on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. The name is Xhosa for New Home. It is reputed to be one of the largest and fastest-growing townships in South Africa.
Skyscraper is a 1996 direct-to-video American film starring Anna Nicole Smith. It was directed by Raymond Martino and written by William Applegate Jr. and John Larrabee. Its plot borrows heavily from the film Die Hard, with Smith taking the lead role.
"Whatever the Case May Be" is the twelfth episode of the first season of Lost. It was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson. It first aired on January 5, 2005, on ABC. The character of Kate Austen is featured in the episode's flashbacks.
U-Carmen eKhayelitsha is a 2005 South African operatic film directed and produced by Mark Dornford-May. The title, "Carmen in Khayelitsha", refers to one of the poorest areas of Cape Town.
No Name on the Bullet is a 1959 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Audie Murphy, Charles Drake, and Joan Evans. It is one of a handful of pictures in that genre directed by Arnold, better known for his science-fiction movies of the era. Although it is one of Universal Pictures' modestly budgeted vehicles for World War II hero Audie Murphy, the top-billed actor is unusually, but very effectively, cast as the villain, a cold-blooded gun-for-hire.
Tiger Bay is a 1959 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It stars John Mills as a police superintendent investigating a murder; his real-life daughter Hayley Mills, in her first major film role, as a girl who witnesses the murder; and Horst Buchholz as a young sailor who commits the murder in a moment of passion. The title refers to the Tiger Bay district of Cardiff, where much of the film was shot.
Les Cousins is a 1959 French New Wave drama film directed by Claude Chabrol. It tells a story about two cousins, the decadent Paul, played by Jean-Claude Brialy, and the naïve Charles, played by Gérard Blain. The film won the Golden Bear at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.
The Notorious Landlady is a 1962 American comedy mystery film starring Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, and Fred Astaire. The film was directed by Richard Quine, with a script by Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart based on the short story "The Notorious Tenant" by Margery Sharp.
Mother is a 2009 South Korean neo-noir thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho, starring Kim Hye-ja and Won Bin. The plot follows a mother who, after her intellectually disabled son is accused of the murder of a young girl, attempts to find the true killer to get her son freed.
The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is a 10-minute short film that was released in 2008. It was filmed entirely in California over the course of 22 days. It was written, directed, and narrated by Richard Gale.
Macabre is a 2009 Indonesian slasher film by The Mo Brothers. The film tells the story of a group of friends headed to the airport who meet a woman claiming to have been robbed and needs a ride home, which begins a dark turn of events. The film is based on 2007 short film Dara.
Encounters South African International Documentary Festival (Encounters) is the premier documentary festival in Africa and one of the oldest film festivals on the continent. It remains one of only a few on the continent that is solely dedicated to the genre. The festival is organised by the Encounters Training and Development Institute. Since its inception, the festival has advanced the currency of documentaries in the country and region, supporting new productions and giving an African platform to international documentaries.
Django Shoots First is an Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Alberto De Martino.
The Khayelitsha Commission, also known as the O'Regan/Pikoli Commission, was a commission of inquiry appointed in 2012 by Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille to investigate allegations of police inefficiency in Khayelitsha and the breakdown in relations between the Khayelitsha community and the police. The commissioners were former Constitutional Court Justice Kate O'Regan and former National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli. It published its final report in 2014.
Funeka Soldaat is a lesbian community activist from South Africa, who works with the Triangle Project and is a founder of Khayelitsha-based lesbian advocacy group, Free Gender. Both of which are non-profit, non-governmental organizations that benefit LGBTI individuals in South Africa. A survivor of corrective rape, she advocates against gender violence and homophobia in her country. Soldaat spoke to a Khayelitsha commission of inquiry in January 2014 about the 1995 rape.
Hell Is Where the Home Is, also known as Trespassers, is a 2018 American home invasion horror film directed by Orson Oblowitz. The film stars Angela Trimbur, Janel Parrish, Jonathan Howard, Zach Avery, and Fairuza Balk.