The Innocence of Muslims

As it stands this Monday morning, the 14-minute teaser trailer of The Innocence of Muslims – a crappy, toe-curlingly amateurish film that insults the Prophet in a number of contentious ways – has set off anti-American rioting all across the Muslim world, resulting, amongst other things, in death of the much respected US Ambassador to…

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The First Film Commissioner

March 09’s Vanity Fair has a great feature on Harry Goulding, the pioneering Colorado-born rancher who, it could be argued, did the work of the world’s first film commissioner….. It’s worth reading the whole article to be once again reminded of how the movies can impact so forcefully on how we see the world, but…

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Turistas

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What is a Film Commission to do? First you get word that Hollywood is coming to your area. There’s even an A-ish list star attached to the project – Mr. Fergilicious, Josh Duhamel. And the story is actually set in your region. It’s even called Turistas – Tourists! Wahey….

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Babel

Caught Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel on tv again last night – a beautiful, gut wrenching and entirely appalling exposition of the confusions and mistakes and misunderstandings that separate us. In light of the xenophobic wrath unfolding in Johannesburg right now, it’s a timely reminder of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – our humanity connects us, a person…

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Kenya Film Commission launches E-Newsletter

Back in January 2008, Martin Cuff Consulting assisted the Kenya Film Commission with the planning, scheduling and organisation of a familiarization tour to a selection of Film Commissions, Film Organisations, production houses, film studios and film schools in South Africa. The March 2008 edition of Screen Africa covers the visit here. Today, the KFC launched…

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Imbongi Awards

The Cape Film Commission created the IMBONGI AWARDS in 2007. IMBONGI means Praise Singer, and the IMBONGI AWARDS are intended to sing the praises of the film sector in the Western Cape. The goal of the Imbongi Awards is to • raise the industry’s profile • recognise its achievements, • reflect the complex, multi-level nature…

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Shirley Valentine

We have a pet hate in our family; the incessant and omnipresent Greek Tourism ad that tops and tails movie news on CNN. At 59 seconds, the (admittedly well-produced) spot seems longer than the snippet of film news it supports. Now in comparison, last night we caught Shirley Valentine on tv. It’s a great little movie…

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