Andrew Worsdale in Amiens
VETERAN South African cineaste Lionel Nqakane was awarded a Medal of Honour on Monday by the mayor of Amiens, France at the 16th International Film Festival.
The award was also given to celebrated Japanese actor Ken Ogata (the star of the films of Shohei Imamura, who’s enjoying a retrospective at the festival) and screenwriter Albert Isaac Bezzeides (author of Kiss Me Deadly, On Dangerous Ground and They Drive By Night – all brilliant 1950s thrillers).
The festival itself is packed with movies, considering the town about an hour north of Paris has only about 160 000 residents. The centrepiece of the event has been a profile of South African cinema, including Nqakane’s Vukani (a poetic political protest piece made in 1962) and Jemima and Johnny (an affecting expose of racism seen through the eyes of two 5-year-olds), my own 1980s look at white protest culture Shot Down, Lionel Rogosm’s legendary look at Sophiatown, Come Back Africa, Jans Rautenbach’s racially charged melodrama Katrina and David Lister’s affirmative-action satire Soweto Green.
As is usual at festivals, there have been organisational problems: prints of the South African 1916 pic De Voortrekkers and several other selections didn’t arrive due to administrative bureaucracy at the National Archive. The electronic sub-titling machine also didn’t pitch as the truck bringing it from Spain broke down.
And there were the usual hiccups – projector breakdowns, sloppy scheduling and general chaos. Nevertheless, the festival has been hugely enjoyable – great food and wine and enthusiastic late-night parties, sometimes accompanied by virtuoso South African music group Ingoma and chanteuse Eunice Matlakala.
The centre of the festival, the Maison de la Culture’s restaurant, has seen many jovial debates – often chaired by Nqakane, an accomplished raconteur.
The selection of competition films has been disappointing, but Lars von Triers’s 1996 Cannes award-winner, the romantically subversive Breaking the Waves, and the Japanese short If I Had Been Roberto, have both been hits