South African Films at the Toronto International Film Festival

Four South African films will premier at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to be held from 4-13 September 2008 in Canada, Toronto.
Among the four local films that will screen at this year’s TIFF are three National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) funded films, Jesus and the Giant (by Akin Omotoso), Skin (by Anthony Fabian), Sea Point Days (by Francois Verster). In addition to the NFVF funded films to be screened at TIFF is Disgrace (by Steve Jacobs), a film adapted from a book by local Nobel Prize award in Literature winner, J.M. Coetzee.
NFVF has worked with the Co-director and Programmer of TIFF, Cameron Bailey to facilitate entry of South African films into the festival since 2004, when for the first time, TIFF had a special focus on South African film.

About the relationship between TIFF and the NFVF, Ryan Haidarian, NFVF’s Head of Production and Development says, “it has to be the best relationship we have with a festival. Having the co-director of the festival come down to South Africa every year for the past few years on scouting trips shows a tremendous amount of commitment for providing a platform for tales from this part of the world. We are extremely grateful for Cameron Bailey’s commitment to see and help South African cinema grow.”
The NFVF is also supporting director Akin Omotoso and Producer Robbie Thorpe of Jesus and the Giant and Sandra Laing whose life story is adapted on Skin to attend TIFF.

Director and producer Akin Omotoso is very excited about having audiences at TIFF seeing his work. “I am very excited! Toronto is one of the top film festivals in the world and it is an honor to have Jesus and The Giant screened there. This is also all the more exciting because the festival doesn't usually program shorts”, says Omotoso.

Local Production Company, Moonlighting productions that are co-producers of the first South Africa/ United Kingdom co-production feature film Skin, will be attending TIFF for the film’s world premier. About Moonlighting’s expectations regarding Skin at TIFF, associate producer at Moonlighting, Dylan Voogt says, “We feel that Skin is a really compelling story, one that needs to be told. Although it is a uniquely African story it has certain universal truths that we believe will resonate with international audiences, so we are hopeful that it will be well received.”
Sea Point Days producer, Neil Brandt, says about TIFF that “the festival will provide the ideal international platform to launch the film onto the global festival circuit, and will hopefully be instrumental in bringing it to the attention of international broadcasters”.

The NFVF would like to congratulate all the local films that will be screened at TIFF this year. “It’s phenomenal to have films that we have supported being recognized by a prestigious film festival such as TIFF. The NFVF is consistently excited by the fact that we have had successive award winning films at TIFF with Hotel Rwanda a United Kingdom, South Africa and Italy Co-production which received the top prize under the category, AFG People’s Choice Award in 2004 and Tsotsi a co-production between the United Kingdom production company, UK Film and Television Production Company, MoviWorld from South Africa, the NFVF and IDC, which won the Audience Award at the 2005 TIFF”, says Haidarian.

About SA films at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival

Jesus and the Giant
This film is set in modern day Johannesburg. Directed by Akin Omotoso and Written by Aryan Kaganof it is shot entirely (save for the last shot of the film) on a digital stills camera. Over 7000 photographs have been stitched together to create movement. The effect gives the film a visceral intensity that relates to it’s theme of violence and redemption. The world around our characters is fractured, broken up, moments are frozen, other’s are faster than the speed of light. Set in the urban intensity of downtown Johannesburg Jesus is a special woman. Her eyes are windows on the world. She has powers she herself doesn’t understand but ultimately she is a warrior for peace. Then one day, her friend Mary arrives at her doorstep beaten. Jesus has to choose whether to continue to nurse Mary or take revenge on the deadly Giant. Director: Akin Omotoso

Skin
Skin, is one of the most bizarre and fascinating true stories to emerge from South Africa: Sandra Laing was a coloured child born in the 1950s to two white Afrikaners, unaware of their black ancestry. The film follows Sandra’s thirty-year journey from rejection to acceptance, betrayal to reconciliation, as she struggles to define her place in a changing world — and triumphs against all odds. Shot in and around Johannesburg at the end of 2007, the film stars Sophie Okonedo as Sandra Laing, Sam Neill as her father Abraham and Alice Krige as her mother Sannie.Director: Anthony Fabian

Sea Point Days
Lying on the coast of Cape Town - South Africa's most segregated city - there is one public space where everyone does seem to come together: the Sea Point Promenade and Municipal Pools. Set between city and ocean, this beautiful strip of "everymansland" offers a quirky and often entertaining mix of class, race, gender and religion: a place where South Africans of all backgrounds can experience happiness together... But is all as it appears? SEA POINT DAYS presents an unusual and impressionistic record of life at Cape Town's Sea Point Promenade and municipal pools, using largely cinematic vignettes to explore issues of belonging, integration, nostalgia, happiness and identity in an ex-white South African neighbourhood. Director: Francois Verster