Research of the film industry and the output of one country

By Michael Luton

The Film Industry• The film industry comprises the technological institutions of filmmaking for example cinematography,

screen writing, pre-production etc.• The expense involved in making movies almost led film production to concentrate on standing production

companies and expansion of opportunities to acquire investment from outside the film industry.• Currently the largest film industries are in the United States, Japan, China. And in Europe the United

Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany are the countries that lead movie production.

South Africa• 1.) What do you think about the South African film industry?

• 2.) what do you know about their culture?

• 3.) What do you know about their films?

• 4.) What do you know about the South African government?

• 5.) What do you know about the country?

Facts about South Africa• South Africa has the cheapest electricity in the world.

• South Africa is the second largest exporter of fruit in the world.

• South Africa is the only country in the world to voluntarily abandon its nuclear weapons program.

• South Africa has the third highest level of biodiversity in the world.

• South Africa is the world's largest producer of macadamia nuts.

• Three of the five fastest land animals live in South Africa - the cheetah, the wildebeest, and the lion.

A brief outline of South Africa’s film industry

• African cinema is film production in Africa. It dates back to the early 20th century, when film reels were the primary cinematic technology in use. The Nigerian film industry is the largest in Africa in terms of value, number of annual films, revenue and popularity. It is also the second-largest national film industry in the world after Indian cinema, by number of films produced.

• Ethnologist and filmmaker Safi Faye was the first African woman film director to gain international recognition.

• In 1972, Sarah Maldoror had shot her film Sambizanga about the 1961–74 war in Angola. Surviving African women of this war are the subject of the documentary Les Oubliées, made by Anne-Laure Folly. Twenty years later. In 1995, Wanjiru Kinyanjui made the feature film The Battle of the Sacred Treein Kenya.

• In 2008, Manouchka Kelly Labouba became the first woman in Gabon cinema history to direct a fictional film. Her short film, Le Divorce, addresses the impact of modern and traditional values on the divorce of a young Gabonese couple.

Tsotsi

• Tsotsi- A South African hoodlum named Totsi lives by a code of violence, he and his gang of thugs prowl the streets of Johannesburg day and night, attacking those who fail to give them what they want. After casually shooting a woman and stealing her car, he discovers her baby in the back seat Instead of harming the baby, he takes it home and cares for it. The child acts as a catalyst for the hardened thug to regain his humanity.

• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX20lzOQwUo• a film of deep emotional power, considers a young killer whose cold eyes show no emotion, who is transformed

by the helplessness of a baby. He didn't mean to kidnap the baby, but now that he has it, it looks at him with trust and need, and he is powerless before eyes more demanding than his own.

• The movie which won an Oscar for best foreign film, is set in Soweto, the township outside Johannesburg where neat little houses built by the government are overwhelmed by square miles of shacks. There is poverty and despair, but also hope and opportunity; We don't even learn his real name until later in the film when we find out "Tsotsi" means "thug," and that's what he is.

• We realize the violence in the film has slowed. Tsotsi himself is slow to realize he has a new agenda. He uses newspapers as diapers, feeds the baby condensed milk, carries it around with him in a shopping bag. And in desperation, he forces a nursing mother to feed the child. As he watches her do what he demands, something shifts inside of him, and all of his hurt and grief are awakened.

• Tsotsi doesn't become a nice man. He simply stops being active as an evil one, and finds his time occupied with the child.

Disgrace

• David Lurie (John Malkovich) is a South African professor of English at an unnamed university in Cape Town. After an affair with one of his students, he loses his job and his reputation. He takes refuge with his daughter, Lucy, at her farm in the Eastern Cape. At first the two experience harmony and David finds peace with himself. However, one day David and his daughter are attacked by three men, and Lucy is raped. Subsequently, David goes through a crisis, not knowing how to cope with his personal and family tragedies. He is also confused by the newfound guilt he suddenly feels about his last affairs.

• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCHQYQ6zi1Y• John Malkovich plays David Lurie, a Cape Town university professor, whose sense of decadent entitlement

brings him down. He coerced a mixed race student into having sex with him, ignoring her unease, he takes her as his due and is eventually exposed and is forced to resign.

• He then goes to live with his daughter Lucy Lurie who owns a farm, David gets a job at a local animal shelter. David seems an odd choice for the role, but, then. His removal from the rest of the human race is one of his strengths, because it prompts the simple curiosity of wondering what this man will do next. David Lurie is an expert in Romantic poetry in a country utterly without romance. David conveys his humbling by tiny degrees until it melts into acceptance.

• The title of the film “Disgrace” symbolises all of the bad things that David Lurie had done and his reflection on those things.

Invictus

• Invictus tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZY8c_a_dlQ• On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) is released from prison and 4 years later, is

elected as the first black president of South Africa. He faces enormous challenges such as poverty and crime and he is particularly concerned about racial divisions between black and white South Africans, which could lead to violence.

• While attending a rugby game between South Africa and England, Mandela realizes that the blacks in the stadium are cheering for England. Knowing that South Africa is set to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup in one year's time, Mandela persuades a meeting of the newly black-dominated South African Sports Committee. He then meets with the captain of the South African rugby team, François Pienaar, and implies that a victory in the World Cup will unite and inspire the nation. Mandela also shares with François a British poem, "Invictus", that had inspired him during his time in prison.