Exclusive: Showmax content chief Yolisa Phahle has revealed how co-producing with international partners has helped the South Africa-based streamer compete with fierce SVoD competition, as a first trailer for its epic fantasy drama Blood Psalms is today unveiled. You can watch it here below.
Blood Psalms, from creators Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T. Qubeka from Yellowbone Entertainment, is a big budget co-production with France’s Canal+ — the latest in several collaborations between the companies — and is billed as Showmax’s “biggest and most ambitious series, completely unlike any other African series you’ve ever seen” by Nomsa Philiso, Executive Head of Programming at the streamer’s parent MultiChoice. The fantasy drama, shot entirely in African languages, has touches of Game of Thrones, set 11,000 years ago in ancient Africa in a world of warring factions and magic.
The synopsis reads: “In Ancient Africa, one thousand days after the fall of Atlantis,...
Blood Psalms, from creators Layla Swart and Jahmil X.T. Qubeka from Yellowbone Entertainment, is a big budget co-production with France’s Canal+ — the latest in several collaborations between the companies — and is billed as Showmax’s “biggest and most ambitious series, completely unlike any other African series you’ve ever seen” by Nomsa Philiso, Executive Head of Programming at the streamer’s parent MultiChoice. The fantasy drama, shot entirely in African languages, has touches of Game of Thrones, set 11,000 years ago in ancient Africa in a world of warring factions and magic.
The synopsis reads: “In Ancient Africa, one thousand days after the fall of Atlantis,...
- 8/17/2022
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
A grand, desolate expanse of hessian-rough desert, subject to unforgiving seasonal extremes of heat and ice, and whose scattered residents have mostly learned to live hard and die harder, South Africa’s Great Karoo is a region that really ought to have housed a thousand horse operas by now. It hasn’t, but an ambitious new generation of filmmakers is catching up to its possibilities. That atmospheric backdrop was the best thing last year’s overworked, Oscar-submitted period adventure “Sew the Winter to My Skin” had going for it; leaner, meaner and altogether more exciting is “Flatland,” an exhilarating fusion of contemporary western, policier and girls-gone-wild road movie that kicked off this year’s Berlinale Panorama program with a wallop.
The third feature from distinctively voiced writer-director Jenna Bass — who also co-wrote last year’s Kenyan Cannes headline-grabber “Rafiki” — “Flatland” represents something of a feminist milestone for a national cinema...
The third feature from distinctively voiced writer-director Jenna Bass — who also co-wrote last year’s Kenyan Cannes headline-grabber “Rafiki” — “Flatland” represents something of a feminist milestone for a national cinema...
- 2/14/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
As the Berlinale expands its efforts to achieve gender equality, Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein co-hosted and moderated a discussion about women striving for industry change Saturday at Berlin’s Regent Hotel. The sharp and focused panel of six experienced industry women – creatives, organizers, journalists, festival organizers and activists – welcomed a full house composed of 98% women.
Silverstein welcomed Andrea Riseborough, the star of opening night film “The Kindness of Strangers,” on stage. The actress’ Mother Sucker Prods. co-sponsored the event.
Riseborough was surrounded by the Toronto Intl. Film Festival’s executive director and co-head Joanna Vincente, co-founder of Le Deuxieme Regard Berenice Vincent, South African writer-director Jenna Bass, whose feature “Flatland” is at the festival, and British Blacklist creator Akua Gyamfi.
Silverstein introduced the central question: “How are women in the industry pushing for change?” Other topics that arose were how much progress has been made, what expansion strategies...
Silverstein welcomed Andrea Riseborough, the star of opening night film “The Kindness of Strangers,” on stage. The actress’ Mother Sucker Prods. co-sponsored the event.
Riseborough was surrounded by the Toronto Intl. Film Festival’s executive director and co-head Joanna Vincente, co-founder of Le Deuxieme Regard Berenice Vincent, South African writer-director Jenna Bass, whose feature “Flatland” is at the festival, and British Blacklist creator Akua Gyamfi.
Silverstein introduced the central question: “How are women in the industry pushing for change?” Other topics that arose were how much progress has been made, what expansion strategies...
- 2/9/2019
- by Thelma Adams
- Variety Film + TV
Three women trapped by circumstances and thrown together by fate set out on a cross-country journey of self-discovery in South African director Jenna Bass’ contemporary Western, “Flatland,” which opens the Panorama section of this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
Bass returns to Berlin a year after taking part in the Generations program with the satirical thriller “High Fantasy.” For her third feature, she sought to make a film that’s as much a tribute to a beloved genre as a reimagining of its gender tropes, asking herself, “What do I bring to this…that another filmmaker wouldn’t?”
Starring Faith Baloyi, Nicole Fortuin and Izel Bezuidenhout, “Flatland” is produced by Proper Film (South Africa), Deal Prods. (Luxembourg) and Igc Films (Germany), with support from the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund. Sales are being handled by The Match Factory.
The film follows a lonely policewoman pining for her fugitive boyfriend while...
Bass returns to Berlin a year after taking part in the Generations program with the satirical thriller “High Fantasy.” For her third feature, she sought to make a film that’s as much a tribute to a beloved genre as a reimagining of its gender tropes, asking herself, “What do I bring to this…that another filmmaker wouldn’t?”
Starring Faith Baloyi, Nicole Fortuin and Izel Bezuidenhout, “Flatland” is produced by Proper Film (South Africa), Deal Prods. (Luxembourg) and Igc Films (Germany), with support from the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund. Sales are being handled by The Match Factory.
The film follows a lonely policewoman pining for her fugitive boyfriend while...
- 2/8/2019
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
With each new revelation to make headlines since the #MeToo movement first rocked Hollywood in 2017, film and TV industries around the globe have faced their own reckoning about sexual harassment, gender parity and equal opportunities for women both on and off screen.
That debate has had ripple effects across sub-Saharan Africa as well, where women in entertainment have long been underrepresented. Though the continent has not had its Harvey Weinstein moment, and few high-profile cases of men in the creative industries accused of sexual misconduct have made headlines, local bizzers say a shift is nevertheless under way.
“It’s a bit slower, and it’s perhaps having to take a lot more push to make it happen, but there is … a reckoning,” says Lara Preston of the Ladima Foundation, a Cape Town-based non-profit supporting African women working in film. “Across countries, it’s … inspired women to be more proactive and say,...
That debate has had ripple effects across sub-Saharan Africa as well, where women in entertainment have long been underrepresented. Though the continent has not had its Harvey Weinstein moment, and few high-profile cases of men in the creative industries accused of sexual misconduct have made headlines, local bizzers say a shift is nevertheless under way.
“It’s a bit slower, and it’s perhaps having to take a lot more push to make it happen, but there is … a reckoning,” says Lara Preston of the Ladima Foundation, a Cape Town-based non-profit supporting African women working in film. “Across countries, it’s … inspired women to be more proactive and say,...
- 2/7/2019
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
One of the major winners at last year’s Berlin Film Festival — and widely distributed worldwide — was a quiet, intimate Paraguayan drama, “The Heiresses,” one of the latest fruits of the World Cinema Fund, a program nurtured by festival chief Dieter Kosslick.
Kosslick is being honored at the Berlin Film Festival with Variety‘s Achievement in International Film Award.
This year there are a record six Wcf-supported films in the Berlin festival, including South Africa’s “Flatland,” which opens the Panorama section. In addition, nine Wcf films will screen at the European Film Market as part of the Wcf Screenings.
Films supported by the fund are not obliged to premiere at Berlin, nor do they receive preferential treatment at the festival. Many premiere at other events, such as Thailand’s “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
When Kosslick set up...
Kosslick is being honored at the Berlin Film Festival with Variety‘s Achievement in International Film Award.
This year there are a record six Wcf-supported films in the Berlin festival, including South Africa’s “Flatland,” which opens the Panorama section. In addition, nine Wcf films will screen at the European Film Market as part of the Wcf Screenings.
Films supported by the fund are not obliged to premiere at Berlin, nor do they receive preferential treatment at the festival. Many premiere at other events, such as Thailand’s “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
When Kosslick set up...
- 2/4/2019
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
"Poppie, you know what we're doing is dangerous?" In the midst of the winter film festival season, take a look at this stylistic drama arriving later this year. The Match Factory has debuted an international / promo trailer for an indie titled Flatland, the latest feature film directed by Jenna Bass. This "contemporary western" is about the journey of self-discovery for three different but equally trapped women. It paints a vivid and unique portrait of femininity against a hostile frontier land and questions what it means to be a woman today in South Africa and the world at large. Faith Baloyi stars as Beauty Cuba, and a cast including Nicole Fortuin, Izel Bezuidenhout, Brendon Daniels, and De Klerk Oelofse. The film features a number of different languages, including English, following these three different women. This looks like something die-hard cinephiles will love, with some crazy footage thrown in. Here's the official...
- 1/30/2019
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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