Mama Africa (DVD)
MAMA AFRICA combines three short powerful films about young people in modern Africa. The films were directed by African women. Rapper and actress Queen Latifah introduces the films. UNO`S WORLD, from Namibia, tells the tale of a young woman, Uno (Sophie David), whose poor judgment leads to an unplanned pregnancy. While her mother watches her baby, Uno pursues the father, becoming involved with a drug dealer in order to track him down. HANG TIME, from Nigeria, opens with a kinetically filmed basketball game. Kwame (Brian Biragi) is a talented young player who can`t afford a decent pair of shoes. With a college scout coming from America to watch him play, the desperate Kwame goes to work for a local gangster to earn the money for his shoes. In the final film, RAYA, from South Africa, the title character (Rehane Abrahams) is a former drug dealer getting out of prison after five years. Unable to reconcile with her conservative Muslim mother, she takes her young daughter and goes to live with a member of her old gang. MAMA AFRICA poignantly depicts family dynamics and gives the audience a view of contemporary urban Africa rarely seen on the screen.NR"
Director: Bridget Pickering|Ngozi Onwurah|Zulfah Otto-Sallies
ACTORS: Sophie David, Brian Biragi, Rehane Abrahams, Elia Jack Nakalemo, Muhindua Kaura
Killer of Snake, Fox of Shaolin (DVD)
Carter Wong stars in this Hong Kong classic as a powerful martial artist who must protect an old man and his daughter from a snake god who possesses deadly kung fu skills.NR"
ACTORS: Carter Wong, Cheung Lik
The Draughtsman`s Contract (DVD)
Mrs. Herbert and her husband are having some marital difficulties, so he decides to take a two week holiday by himself. To surprise him on his return, Mrs. Herbert commissions an artist to paint twelve portraits of her estate. The artist agrees, but on the condition that Mrs. Herbert lend him the use of her bodily favors for those two weeks. When Mr.. Herbert is found dead in his own mote at the end of those two weeks, the artist is the prime suspect, and Mrs. Herbert believes the mystery can be solved by close examination of the paintings the artist did. Greenaway`s film feels a bit like BLOW-UP, but examines a world far stranger than the one of its setting; it feels as though the film takes place in a parallel universe rather than the 17th century.R"
Director: Peter Greenaway
ACTORS: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Dave Hill, Michael Feast
Double Down (DVD)
When the stakes are at their highest, the reward is always that much sweeter. This group of young gamblers is discovering the hard way which are their highest priorities. Facing the greatest gamble of their lives, they discover that their is more than money at stake, and soon they will be put to the test. Can their friendships--and even their lives--be expected to last through this?R"
ACTORS: Jason Priestley, Peter Dobson, Richard Portnow, David Proval
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (DVD) Cinema Sirens Collection This lavish, big-budget blockbuster combined tales from Ernest Hemingways life with Papas already famous autobiographical novel of the same name. As Harry (Gregory Peck) lies wounded and delirious in an Afric...
This lavish, big-budget blockbuster combined tales from Ernest Hemingways life with Papas already famous autobiographical novel of the same name. As Harry (Gregory Peck) lies wounded and delirious in an African campsite at the foot of the snow-covered slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, he recounts the story of his life in a series of flashbacks. Writing, women, and big-game hunting--these are the things that have defined and dominated his existence. In pursuit of all three, he has traveled the globe from the salons of Bohemian Paris to the battlefields of Spain to the plains of Africa. Now, in the shadow of the great mountain and his own approaching death from gangrene, he tries to make sense of his failures. Few Hemingway novels play as well onscreen as they do on paper, but under the direction of Henry King, star Peck turns in an inspired performance. Susan Hayward plays Harrys devoted beau, while Harry himself pines for the love he lost in Cynthia (Ava Gardner). The romantic, sentimental, qualities embedded in the fine script are driven home by Bernard Hermanns brilliant score. Theater operators actually feared that audiences would stay away from the film because they couldn`t pronounce Kilimanjaro, but the film turned out to be one of the biggest hits of 1952.
NR"
Director: Henry King
ACTORS: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward, Leo G. Carroll, Hildegard Knef
