The organisers of the 2010 Cape Winelands Film Festival (CWFF) are proud to present an unparallel window on quality films from around the globe. The rich selection of world cinema includes features, documentaries and shorts, which have won over 300 international awards combined.

Judged by the international response the Cape Winelands Film Festival’s short film competition has developed into the most important film festival platform in South Africa for quality productions from around the world. More than 50 outstanding short films form part of our selection, especially work from Canada, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and France. Brilliant shorts such as Next Floor, The Devil’s in the Details, Danse Macabre, Babylon 2084, Under My Garden, Muro and Behind the Dunes should not be missed by movie lovers, film students and filmmakers!

The festival remains an important forum for South African cinema, Six South African features will compete with films from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe in the feature film competition.

The opening night film, Master Harold …and the Boys, an adaptation of a play by Athol Fugard, will have its world premiere in the open air amphitheatre at Spier estate in the Cape Winelands district near Stellenbosch. We are grateful for Spier Films and in particular producers Zaheer Goodman-Bhyat and Michael Auret for making these screenings in the beautiful Cape Winelands possible, as well as the open air screening of Sea Point Days at the Sea Point Pavilion.

The multi award-winning Shirley Adams is also in competition, as well as four new local features: Darrell Roodt’s Jakhalsdans, Minky Schlesinger’s sensitive drama Gugu and Andile, Darfur, a hard-hitting drama about the violence in Sudan, as well as I now pronounce you Black and White.

Apart from selected screenings in the Cape Winelands district and Sea Point, the 2010 edition will once again feature screenings in the historic independent art cinema of the Labia Theatre, as well as the CityVarsity Cinema and Iziko Museum in the city centre of Cape Town.

The CWFF will once again include a focus on the exciting developments in current Brazilian cinema, especially due to the wonderful dedication of Mr. Joaquim A. Whitaker Salles, Consul General of Brazil in Cape Town. Remarkable films such as Alice’s House and December once again confirm the richness of contemporary Brazilian cinema.

The festival includes a strong focus on the environment. An international and local documentary programme has been carefully selected to raise consciousness regarding global warming and the impact on the environment. Highlights include Iceman: The Lewis Gordon Pugh Story, Uranium Road and the brilliant Shelter in Place. Uplifting success stories regarding environmental conservation such as Gorillas: A Journey for Survival, The Return of the Musk Ox and Nature of life complement the selection.

One of the highlights of the CWFF is the first ever South African focus on the rich film cultures from the Baltic States (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia). Official entries from Estonia and Lithuania for the 2010 Oscar competition are among the Baltic selection: Powerful period dramas such as December Heat and Taarka, as well as the visually stunning Vortex! Documentaries like The Singing Revolution and Disco and Atomic War provide unparallel historical perspectives on the changes in Estonia during the past century. Apart from the Baltic focus excellent features and documentaries from Nordic countries, as well as Eastern European include the epic war drama St George shoots the Dragon and the very moving The Heart of the Wise Lives in the House of Sorrow from Serbia; the delightful Wedding in Bessarabia from Romania (which currently enjoys a cinematic New Wave); the multi-award winning drama The Other Bank from Georgia and the last film by the great Russian director Sergei (War and Peace) Bondarchuk, the epic Quiet flows the Don, starring Rupert Everett, F. Murray Abraham and Delphine Forest.

Various perspectives by young Palestinian, Israeli and Egyptian filmmakers regarding life in Palestine and Israel have been captured in impressive documentaries such as Jerusalem Moments, Another Way, Shunned and Of Flesh and Blood. Two features, Herman and The Smell of Apples vividly focus on the Kurdish people of Iraq.

The organisers of the CWFF are honoured to pay tribute to the great British filmmaker Terence Davies with screenings of his most famous films: The Long Day Closes, The House of Mirth, The Terence Davies Trilogy, Of Times and the City, as well as Distant Voices, Still Lives. To date Davies has won 13 international awards and has been nominated for another 15. As a filmmaker, Davies is noted for his recurring themes of emotional (and sometimes physical) endurance, the influence of memory on everyday life and the potentially crippling effects of dogmatic religiosity on the emotional life of individuals and societies. Stylistically, Davies' works are notable for their symmetrical compositions, "symphonic" structure and measured pace. He is also the sole screenwriter of all his films. Of Time and the City, which was premiered out of competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim, will also be screened at Spier’s amphitheatre. The magnificent film uses vintage newsreel footage, contemporary popular music and a narration by Davies himself as a bittersweet paean to his hometown of Liverpool. It has received rave reviews on its premiere. Of Time and the City is both a love song and a eulogy to Liverpool. It is also a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it toll.

The CWFF will also pay tribute to the French master of cinema, Alain Resnais, who received a Life time achievement award at the 2009 Cannes film festival. The focus includes classics such as Hiroshima Mon amour, My American Uncle (starring Gerard Depardieu) as well as recent films by this great filmmaker. A selection of contemporary French films, such as the multi-award winning drama A Prophet, complements the Resnais tribute.

Movie lovers shouldn’t miss the great films from the Netherlands and Belgium at the festival such as Scum and Lost Persons Area.

Soccer is the theme of several documentaries and shorts: Streetball, Black Star: An African Football Odyssey, Mapi Liberia, Africa10, Soccerman as well as Over the Fence

Once again various sponsors, media partners and individuals ensured the continuation of the festival: The City of Cape Town; the Protea Hotel Group; Ludi Kraus and the staff of the Labia; Spier Films and especially Zaheer Goodman-Bhyat and Michael Auret; Laurence Mitchell and the Cape Film Commission; Joaquim A. Whitaker Salles, Consul General of Brazil in Cape Town, the British Consulate General, UK Film Council, the Italian Embassy, the French Embassy, Culturesfrance, IFAS, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Evert Lombaert and the CityVarsity School of Media and Creative Arts, The Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, Lilian Baksalevowicz and FilmContact.com, Angela van Schalkwyk and Screen Africa; Yoram Allon, Ian Haydn Smith and Sara Tyler from International Film Guide, Laetitia Pople (Die Burger), Theresa Smith (The Star) and Kevin Kriedeman (Call Sheet).

In particular one would like to thank International Film Guide, widely recognised as the definitive annual review of world cinema providing unrivalled coverage of filmmaking and international film festivals in more than 120 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The CWFF will be the first African film festival to include the International Film Guide Inspiration Award in this year’s edition of the festival.

The award will be given to an emerging filmmaker (South African or international) at the film festival. The International Film Guide Inspiration Award, presented by Wallflower Press, the largest independent film book publisher in the UK, and the Criterion Collection, the leading distributor of classic world cinema, is a unique prize of film books, reference guides and film DVDs designed to provide emerging filmmakers at the start of their careers with inspiration from some of world’s most iconic filmmakers, including Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut, Fritz Lang, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Jim Jarmusch, Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Todd Haynes, Terrence Malick, Mike Leigh, Roman Polanski, Chris Marker, Ang Lee, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Lars von Trier and Lindsay Anderson.

With regard to other partnerships it is important to mention that the organisers of the famous African Film Festival of Leuven (AFF), currently in its 14th year, are going to sign a cooperation agreement with the CWFF at this year’s edition. Few African films are shown in Belgian cinemas. The main purpose of the AFF is to ensure that quality films from Africa, including South Africa, can be viewed in the regular theatre circuit or on television.

Therefore, organising an event or festival is a means to this purpose. The AFF is a non profit organisation, which wishes to construct a circuit which offers a financial guarantee to the distributors the AFF co-operates with. This circuit is currently incomplete but does form the basis of a larger circuit in Flanders/Belgium. The aim is to guarantee at least 50 screenings so that a distributor can launch an African movie without great financial risk.

The final schedule can be downloaded at

http://films-for-africa.co.za/

Leon van der Merwe
Festival Director
Cape Winelands Film Festival