Sadly, of all of the people to whom I mention this, there is little reaction to the movie and its politics. In fact, after i mention this to one person, I hear 'I don't get involved in politics' just before the mention of those 'lazy natives.....' So, painful and so slow. And so angry.
'Matthew Hahn’s The Robben Island Shakespeare is indeed a manual for both the young and old in South Africa and the world, to help us charter the difficult journey of life and the survival of the human spirit, UBUNTU, against all odds.' - Tony Award Winning Actor and South African Cultural Activist John Kani, in his introduction to The Robben Island Shakespeare.
Monday, 25 August 2014
Richard Attenborough, director of Cry Freedom, dies aged 90
Just heard the news that Richard Attenburgh has died today. I find it poient that I arrive in Port Elizabeth on the day that he has died. His film, Cry Freedom, for all of its controversy within the Liberation movement, was instrumental in conscientizing me as a young 14 year old wrapped up in my cottoned wooled life in Indiana about the conditions that the vast majority of South Africans faced under apartheid and was the beginning of the long road that brought me to where I am today. There is much still to be angry about but progress, however achingly slowly, is being made.