Anthony Fabian’s Skin is a story of forgiveness, a human drama set during Apartheid, told with grace and understanding by two of Hollywood’s most poised actresses. Sophie Okonedo (The Secret Life of Bees) was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress for her role in Hotel Rwanda. In the film she played the wife of a hotel owner (Don Cheadle) during the Rwandan genocide. On screen she is passionate, all-consumed by the role. In real life she is soft-spoken, gentle. She can’t watch her own films.

Alice Krige (Solomon Kane) was born in Upington. She left South Africa in 1976 to study drama in London. She’s starred in numerous film roles over the years, such as the Academy Award-winning Chariots of Fire. She’s had as many television parts as theatre roles.

In Skin, the actresses play mother and daughter. Sophie, who was born to a Nigerian father and a Polish/Russian mother, could relate to the character of Sandra Laing, a coloured child born to white parents during Apartheid. “I was intrigued,” she says. “The story of Sandra was extraordinary.”

The Oscar-nominated actress says she was interested in being part of the film from the draft stage. “It was obvious from the beginning that Anthony was very passionate about the story and I wanted to work with him. I also looked forward to coming to Johannesburg, it’s a very special place for me. I greatly enjoyed filming there,” she says.

Last year Sophie also played another iconic South African woman, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, in the film Mrs. Mandela, directed by Michael Samuels. Ironically, the character actress hasn’t received as much flack about the casting as Jennifer Hudson, her cast-mate on The Secret Life of Bees, who will play the same role in the film Winnie.
Sophie says she’s drawn to roles about women of colour and is moved by their stories. “I love South Africa and I look forward to coming here. It’s incredibly beautiful. I breathe out when I come here. The country is so ancient and I can’t help but feel moved.”

Her co-star Alice Krige plays Sannie Laing in the film, which sees the actress return to her South African roots. “This is a story that needed to be told. Sandra is an everyman hero and this is the journey that she has taken. It’s a story of real forgiveness and deals with a great deal of heartache. This is something that she is still wrestling with,” Alice says.

She adds that she could identify with the pain of the Laing family and believes that director Anthony Fabian brought a great insight and wisdom to the film in making it a story of a family. “The audiences could see it was a most remarkable story. People wept, and that is where Anthony’s stroke of genius lies,” she says.

During production the actress was constantly flying back and forth between Cape Town and Johannesburg for a project she is currently collaborating on with her husband Paul Schoolman and actor John Kani.

String Caesar is a film set in prisons across the world, including Cardiff Prison in Wales and Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Alice says the project initially aimed to tap into the unchannelled creative talent of the prisoners, but the logical next step was to increase the project to include the whole of the Cape Flats. The Turning Point Foundation has been set up for skills training.

“It’s very empowering. We’ve been working in prisons since the 1980s. It’s incredible to finally see my husband’s vision real.”

Read the original article here.

In a bid to raise teen interest in her cellphone novel, one author is adding sex to sell. And its working.

From The Sunday Times
February 14, 2010
Hot txt: Keitai Shosetsu’s racy mobile novel is a hit
Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent

Not all the young Japanese glued to their super-sophisticated mobile phones on Tokyo’s underground are texting their excuses home. They are just as likely to be reading a 15-year-old girl’s hit novel written purely for mobile phone users and designed to be read on tiny screens.

“Bunny” — as the online author calls herself — is the star of Japan’s latest literary vogue, the keitai shosetsu, or mobile phone novel, with her work Wolf Boy and Natural Girl.

With more than an echo of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, it tells of a pretty teenage girl’s crush on a handsome but heartless boy.

Although it is the stuff of a thousand paperback romances, this one has caught the mood among Japan’s notoriously fickle young audience.
Tapped out character by character on Bunny’s keyboard, the saga of shyness and cruelty expanded to three volumes. Its popularity led to the publication of a printed book version which has sold more than 110,000 copies and made almost £400,000.

Bunny claims to be a typical suburban teenager who eats at McDonald’s and enjoys taking wacky pictures of herself and her friends in photo booths. She is one of many aspiring novelists in the keitai shosetsu literary wave.

The craze took off thanks to a website that allows users to upload chunks of text to a webpage. The narratives are then pasted into complete online novels and delivered to mobile phones. Keitai have three typical features: short paragraphs, “emoticon” symbols such as smiles and teen angst dialogue — a lot of it.

“I only kissed her because I felt like it at the time … There’s no way there’d be any other reason,” says the anti-hero.

In volume one, the demure Miku Takahata is forcibly kissed by Shun Amamiya on her first day at boarding school. The pair find themselves elected to an elite club of pupils. By the end she is allowing his kisses.
The second volume chronicles their move into a special boarding house reserved for the prettiest girls and most handsome boys. The rooms have kitchenettes. The first meal she cooks for Shun is stew.

Devotees of Twilight’s chaste romances should stop reading here. By volume three, Miku and Shun are having sex. In the epilogue, Miku’s imagination runs free to picture them as a happy couple with Shun working as a salaryman and Miku running a cooking school for housewives.

There is worse. “Wolf” is described as a prince and as a “fierce S”, meaning sadist, for the violence of his kisses.
Readers’ reactions include one saying: “Shun is super, dangerous to M [masochist] girls like me.”

It is this undertone, reflecting a Japanese subculture of sadomasochistic pornography, that distinguishes Wolf Boy from the crowd of slushy keitai novels on screens.

Bunny’s reticence has even had some Japanese internet users questioning whether she is really the precocious schoolgirl she claims to be.

Mothers seem unruffled by their daughters’ taste in such novels. But teachers have been concerned by surveys purporting to show that many teenage girls read mobile novels to the exclusion of anything else.
As for critics, they are unimpressed by the abbreviation and coarsening of grammar and style in literary Japanese. “This genre is like fast food. No new literature will come from it but it will continue to be consumed by girls,” said Akiko Nakamori, a columnist in the Asahi newspaper.

Some entrepreneurial publishers are hoping Wolf Boy will be the precursor of a lucrative franchise to rival the success of the Twilight vampire novels. “We’ll just have to wait until a really talented author appears,” said Tetsuya Ohkubo, a director at Shueisha, the leading publisher.

That — and a Japanese Robert Pattinson.

Let me use Kendall from my latest novel Fuse as an example. I was renting a small cottage in Harfield Village when he popped into my mind, fully formed. Anything might have incited his arrival, a black-clad youth walking down the road, a sad kid sitting at the train station dreading going to school, a couple of goth kids in Long Street pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist – it could have been one of them, it could have been all of them. It could have been someone I knew long ago who moved away and fell out of touch.

I was walking home from the train station when the character was born. He wasn’t Kendall then, but a nameless teenager with black painted nails, and worn clothes, long unruly hair and a hidden smile that only came out on the rarest of occasions. I had to write a book about him.

The book began as a diary. His name was William, and he was bitterly unhappy at school and at home, looking for a way out. Music was his only consolation. I toyed with the idea of him finding happiness as a musician in the end. But something didn’t sit right. The book didn’t flow. The pace was wrong, the whole story was wrong. I stopped writing and forgot about it for a while. My notebook gathered dust.

When Morne Harmse committed the unthinkable in Krugersdorp, I remembered my story but didn’t put pen to paper until the media began their campaign of ignorance. Then I started writing again with a vengeance.

I changed from first person to third. I changed William’s name to Kendall, giving him a family and a brother whose personality was as different to his own as a dog’s is to a polar bear. I also added a third character, Craig, to act as a catalyst. You know when a story is right and when it isn’t. Only when I added Justin and Craig to the story was the character of Kendall able to shine. Then they all came alive.

As for dialogue, I don’t spend my days following teenagers around with a notebook, writing down everything they say. I just imagine the conversations Kendall and Justin would have on their way home from school. It’s natural, like playing pretend as a child. You just do it.

Writing is easy if you love it. Its fun if its not a chore. If you think of your characters as people then that’s how they will come across on paper.

It works for me.

Denise says, “As an actor you play a part because you are drawn to the character, and for others to acknowledge your work is the cherry on the top – you are not expecting it but it is always great to get it.” Denise prepared for the role by spending time at the Western Cape Rehab Centre to experience what it would be like to care for someone who is totally dependent on their caregiver. Denise says all the actors had to develop a relationship with the DOP (Jamie Ramsay) as his role in telling the intimate story is crucial. “Then I spent some quiet time just with Shirley, trying to make this fictional character real, finding her inside me. What do we have in common? Where do we differ? How can I allow her to have a voice through me? Hopefully that is what I achieved.”

Denise says that 20-something director Oliver Hermanus is ‘gifted’ and has all the qualities of a great filmmaker. She says, “He did not choose an easy film as his first, yet he was so clear in what he wanted. It was ultimately a very rewarding experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat.” 2009 has been a busy year for Denise. She is currently working on a sitcom, Deeltitel Dames, for Penguin Films; a new South African play, Sister Breyani for Baxter Theatre/KKNK; and a drama series, Erfsondes 3, for Imani Media.

Shirley Adams screened in the International Competition at the recent Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and Denise says the invitations for festivals are rolling in. “Audiences have responded well to the intimacy of the style and so totally get the underlying themes of single parenting, violence and poverty.”

Sally Fink

This article first appeared in the Callsheet.

© The Callsheet

Jessica has a BA in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town, as well as experience in classical ballet. After leaving university, she worked with a children’s theatre company that travelled across South Africa in a beat-up old VW, an experience she remembers fondly.

“We broke down somewhere between Kokstad and Matatilela. It was snowing so we all got out and had a snow ball fight and then made some very random, obscure movement piece with Jamiroquai playing on the radio, until eventually the head master of the school came to rescue us.” She insists that the struggles you experience early in your career are essential stepping stones, and shouldn’t be forgotten.

She cut her acting teeth on roles in local television productions Gaz’Lam, Isidingo and Home Affairs and has acted in a string of theatre productions, including Macbeth, Sleeping Beauty, Matilda, African Folk Tales and Scratch among others. With a leading role in Disgrace and supporting roles in The Bang Bang Club and The Prisoner, she is well on her way to international stardom.

Jessica says Disgrace director Steve Jacobs knew what he wanted from his characters and pushed until he got it, a method that made the experience all the more worthwhile. “Having been an actor before, Steve focused a lot of his attention on the characters of the film, their different journeys, their relationships with each other and the real truth of our performances. I’d much rather be told by a director that I can do better than complimented. I loved working with him because of this very reason.”

Brigid Olen, the South African producer on the film, said that when Steve saw Jessica for the first time he knew she was perfect for the role of Lucy.

The South African actress thought differently, believing she didn’t stand a chance after her audition. “My initial reaction was that I was completely different to the character, but on closer inspection of Lucy and looking at the finer detail I actually had more in common with her than I thought. I definitely had to work hard at certain aspects of the role, and some parts were easier than others.”

John Malkovitch (Burn After Reading) plays her father, David Laurie, in the film. Among other things, Jessica says he taught her how to step into the life of a character and how to make the perfect parmesan soufflé. She says, “He gave me a copy of William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech and said it brought him to tears every time he read it. He often played music and related the song to the ease in which a character should come to you. He played various forms of music like Jim Morrison,classical and 50 Cent.”

In Steven Silver’s 2010 release, The Bang Bang Club, Jessica plays the love interest of Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch). “My character, Allie, was more like a foil to soften the severe and self destructive character of Kevin,” she says of the part. The film, which details the true-life experiences of four combat photographers capturing the final days of Apartheid, also stars Ryan Phillippe, Malin Akerman and South African actors Neels van Jaarsveld and Frank Rautenbach.

The last few months have seen Jessica travelling the world to promote Disgrace. She has also been hard at work on a theatre piece for the Carthage Theatre Festival in Tunisia where she is based.

Next up, Jessica can be seen in AMCtv’s The Prisoner where she plays 554 opposite Sir Ian McKellan (Lord of the Rings).

Sally Fink
This article first appeared in the Callsheet
© The Callsheet

New Moon follows from where Twilight left off. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are dating, but it’s a relationship balanced on a knife-edge. He’s a vampire and she’s human and her scent is simply irresistible. They can only kiss for the a few seconds before he has to break apart from her to stop himself from losing control. Despite this deadly obstacle, the couple are desperately in love, as only teenagers can be. The movie begins with Bella turning eighteen, which in her mind, makes her one year older than Edward (even though he is technically 107.) She tries to hide the fact that its her birthday from her friends, but the all-knowing Alice (Ashley Greene) throws a party. It’s here that the first turning point occurs. As Bella is unwrapping a gift she cuts herself, which unleashes the newborn vampire Jasper’s (Jackson Rathbone) thirst. A fight occurs which results in Bella becoming seriously injured. But worse than this, Edward believes he can no longer protect Bella. From his family, or from himself.

The Cullens leave Forks and Bella plunges into a depression that lasts three months. She begins a cycle of reckless behaviour which ultimately brings her closer to Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who slowly, and unknowingly, brings her back into the world. Friendship and ultimately romance blooms and Bella learns the secret of the Quileutes.

The romantic bubble is burst by the re-appearance of one the Cullens, who brings some very distressing news. Bella is left with the question? Who will she choose?

To be honest New Moon was my least favourite of the Twilight saga. Twilight was more than absorbing. It was a black hole that sucked you in and left you reeling afterwards. With Twilight, Meyer had re-written Romeo and Juliet and instead of the tragic final death, she ended the novel with the star-crossed Bella and Edward declaring their undying love for each for each other. I reached for New Moon expecting exactly that, the moon, but instead I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth. Where was Edward? I’m a creature of habit, and can’t read a book without finishing it, and it was only the thought that he might come back that got me through it. The book was too long, and not what I was expecting. But being part of the saga it was a bestseller anyway. Stephanie Meyer has mastered the young adult genre. By the time Eclipse hit the shelves I was hooked again.

Despite my gripes about the book the film was outstanding. It was taut, constantly moving and brilliantly weaved together. The scenes between Bella and Jacob are so intimate that you almost wish that Edward doesn’t come back. I usually see film adaptations as visual companions to the novels, but this was just lovely, and far more enjoyable than the book. The movie was directed by Chris Weitz who also directed The Golden Compass. There is certainly more weight to this film, which is noticeable by the impressive special effects, the appearance of more than one heavyweight actor and a high-speed car sequence with a Ferrari, but the it retains the same moodiness of Twilight. The scenes in Forks are just as lovely, if not more so.

And Dakota Fanning shone as Jane.

To be fair I don’t think I should have written this review just after seeing the film. I am still feeling that heady afterglow and wanting to discuss it every five minutes with every person I see. Of course it wasn’t a perfect film. Jasper’s sudden impulse to charge was just too contrived, Jamie Campbell Bower’s role of Caius seemed rather pointless and everyone in the film other than Bella, Edward and Jacob seemed to only have one line. Despite these teething problems I thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean, lets be fair, no film is faultless. I can’t watch the trailer of Invictus without bursting at the seams at Matt Damon’s accent. And that might be an Oscar contender.

Read my Twilight review here.

On Friday 23 October I joined fellow scribblers Lauren Beukes, Sarah Lotz, Diane Awerbuck, Caine Prize winner Henrietta Rose-Innes and Sam Wilson for the first of the South African Horrorfest Events, entitled Bloody Parchment.

Veruschka and her team transformed The Book Lounge into The Lounge of Horror, as crowds fought their way through spider webs and dangling bats to hear us recite our scariest stories. Like Lauren and Sarah, I came in costume, although to be honest I’m not sure whether anyone guessed I was dressed as Hot Stuff the little devil.

Sam started the evening off on a high note with his tale about The Wolf That Cried Boy, complete with cue cards. Who knew eating little boys could be so funny? Henrietta gave us all goosebumps with her slithery story about creepy crawlies, and of course Sarah, replete in her Corpse Bride best, recited her Love Poem to a Zombie. Robot Girl Lauren Beukes ended the night off with What The Book Lounge Doesn’t Tell You. I could tell you what that is, but the books wont like it.

My story, somewhere in the middle, was an excerpt from a short story that was first entitled The Expedition. Its new incarnation, Triolet, One am, will appear in the Home and Away anthology by Zebra Press in April next year. It’s a spooky little yarn about three kids who become friends while on holiday with their parents in Mauritius. One night they set out to find a haunted plantation house, but you’ll have to wait to find out what happens to them. Or harass Louis.

You can hear the Something Wicked podcast of me reading the excerpt here.

Or watch it here.

It was a fantastic evening with The Book Lounge pulling out all the stops to host us. Thanks to the zombified staff for creating the perfect setting for a horror reading. Thanks to Joe, Vianne and Something Wicked for recording the readings and to everyone who attended. Can’t wait till next year!

And to all Book SA readers, Happy Halloween. Every day should be an excuse to dress up and eat sweets.

She gives the novel a sound three and a half stars, and laments my using one too many adverbs, but offers this sterling praise at the end.

Fuse is a very good story, full of excitement and surprises, and may perhaps give food for thought to bullies who, it is said, have usually once been bullied themselves. The growing closeness of the two brothers as they survive their difficult and often dangerous experiences is well portrayed and contributes to the reader’s engagement with them. Young adults should find Fuse a good read, one that is engrossing and very amusing in parts.

The Changeling

The despicable switch was like many before
A fey child for human, raised on the moor.
While the other masquerades in the world among men
You can tell by his eyes he is not one of them.
They are slanted, mischievous, and matching his grin.
And with a wink of those eyes draws admirers in.
He is shallow, and childish, like a jester of old
But despite his misgivings, angry words go untold.
For there is a truth in this world, as old as time,
Every girl loves the fairy, and I adore mine.