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Seequent hosts South African High Commissioner at Christchurch HQ to celebrate strong relationship

State of the Nation Address By His Excellency Jacob G Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa on the occasion of the Joint Sitting Of Parliament, Cape Town, 13 February 2014. Good evening, sanibonani, molweni, dumelang, riperile, ndimadekwana, goeienaand. I wish to thank the Presiding Officers for this opportunity to speak to the people of South Africa, on this occasion of the last State of the Nation Address, of the fourth democratic administration.

South African Film Festival
11-14 November 2013
Paramount Cinema: 25 Courtney Place
Wellington CBD
New Zealand

The South African High Commission (SAHC) in Wellington, New Zealand will be hosting in collaboration with the RSA National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) a South African Film Festival from 11 – 14 November 2013 at Paramount Theater.

South Africa and New Zealand had signed an Agreement on Co-production of Films on 11 September 2011. This Film Festival is primarily meant to service the Co-production Agreement through interactive sessions and engagements between the stakeholders from both countries (Filmmakers). Furthermore, this serves as amongst other activities that the South African High Commission sought to strengthen the existing Bilateral relations between the two countries.

Day 1
11 November 2013

H.E High Commissioner N.M (Zodwa) Lallie will be hosting an opening Cock-tail function to welcome delegations from both countries, and also the invited guests as to mark the inaugural SA-NZ Film Festival in the pursuit to service the Film Co-production Agreement between the two countries. (Attendance by invitation).

The following Films are scheduled for screening as follows:

Screening of opening film
11 November 2013

Title : Felix
Time: 20h00pm

KEY INFO:
TITLE: Felix
GENRE: Family film
FORMAT: HD
LENGTH: +/- 120 minutes
LOCATION: Cape Town, South Africa
DIRECTOR: Roberta Durrant
WRITER: Shirley Johnston
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Penguin Films
Venue: Paramount Cinema: 25 Courtney Place Wellington CBD (open to public, 400 Seater)
This will be followed by question and answer session.

SYNOPSIS:
14-year-old Felix Xaba dreams of becoming a jazzman like his late father, Zweli, a famous saxophonist in his day.
His mother Lindiwe fears her son will indeed end up like his dad: a drunk who squandered his days and money in the taverns before drinking himself to death.  
Lindiwe’s ambitions for her son exclude jazz, which she bans from her home as ‘the devil’s music.’
Felix continues to play his pennywhistle in secret. 
His world is turned upside down when he wins a scholarship to a private school. Felix leaves the comfort of the township, where his siblings and friends regard him as king of their world, to enter an elitist domain where he’s regarded as a pitiful nobody and where a gang of bullies, led by Junior Junior, makes his life a misery.
Battling humiliation at school and his mother’s fierce ban on music at home, Felix finds comfort in the company of a drunken old busker, Bra Joe, who plays sax outside the local tavern.  He learns that Joe used to play in his dad’s band, The Bozza Boys, once the hottest jazz group in the Cape. 
An audition notice for the school jazz concert is the spur Felix needs to overcome his loss of status, but he fails the first audition because he can’t read music or play the sax.
Mrs. Cartwright, Felix’s English teacher, persuades the music teacher, Mr. Murray, to let him try for the second audition.
Armed with his dad’s old sax, Felix rushes off to seek help from Joe, who ropes in Fingers Fortuin, another aging ex-Bozza Boy.
Together they embark on a crash saxophone course for Zweli’s son, who learns not only how to play the sax, but also about his musical roots and his father’s past.
When Lindiwe discovers that the ‘drunken busker’ is coaching Felix on her late husband’s sax, she explodes. In a fury, she pawns the sax and forbids Felix any contact with Joe or jazz.
Behind his mother’s back, Felix tracks down all the surviving musicians of the Bozza Boys.  With Joe’s help, he persuades them to reunite and give a jazz fundraiser in the tavern so he can reclaim his dad’s sax from the pawnshop.
The gig is a wild success.

Felix buys back his sax and surprises Mr. Murray at the audition. He is in the school concert and on top of the world, until he makes his proud announcement to Lindiwe, who is appalled by his duplicity and refuses to attend, tearing up her invite. 
Lindiwe has a change of heart on the night of the concert. During the finale, Felix is overcome when he sees his siblings dragging his mother into the auditorium. He announces that there will be a “surprise encore” dedicated to his late father, Tata Zweli, and his mother Lindiwe, “who is only a little bit late.” 
A trumpet sounds offstage.  Felix leads the Bozza Boys onstage and they do a foot-stomping, show-stopping number, which even gets Mr. Murray and Mrs. Cartwright dancing in the aisle.
When Felix does a star turn, Lindiwe ululates in the front row. She is at last a happy mama, and, like his father before him, Felix has become “king of the sax.”

Day 2:
12 November 2013
Screening of second film:

Title: “The Devil’s Lair
Time: 6.15 pm
Duration: 85mins
Venue: Paramount Cinema: 25 Courtney Place Wellington CBD (open to public, 400 Seater)
This will be followed by question and answer session.

Synopsis:
The film is set in a world where conflicting forces are struggling to regulate the illicit drug supply market among the working class communities of the Cape Flats in Cape Town, an area that is infamous for having one of the highest murder rates in the world. Our main character, Braaim, is a gang leader navigating a violent and conflicted physical and psychological landscape, one in which honour and betrayal are all too often sides of the same coin. On the one side is his young family, and on the other, heavily armed foot soldiers.

Emotional pressure from his wife to lead a normal life is mounting and Braaim is torn between securing the future of his young family while guiding his men through a deadly drug turf war. The film becomes an intimate portrayal of one gang leader and his young family in a community where there are thousands of heavily armed individuals hoping to achieve the same goals in life. This crafted Cinema Verite film draws the audience into the claustrophobia of a drug den contrasted with the dangerous chaos of the streets

Screening of third film
12 November 2013

Title: “Fanie Fourie’s Lobola”
Time: 8.15 pm
Duration: 95mins
Venue: Paramount Cinema: 25 Courtney Place Wellington CBD (open to public, 400 Seater)
This will be followed by question and answer session.

SYNOPSIS (short)
Fanie Fourie’s Lobola is a South African romantic comedy about an Afrikaans guy and a Zulu girl who fall in love and have to navigate their way through the complicated process of lobola – the traditional Zulu bride price. Filled with humorous but hard-hitting social commentary, the film is a contemporary fairytale about love and tradition in a rapidly evolving society. Fanie Fourie’s Lobola was inspired by the book of the same name, written by Nape à Motana. A Sepedi, he writes the book from an Afrikaner’s perspective, and deals with the subject of inter-racial relationships with humour and candour.

Day 3
13 November 2013
Screening of fourth film

Title: Of Good Report
Time: 8.15 pm
Duration: 104mins
Venue: Paramount Cinema: 25 Courtney Place Wellington CBD (open to public, 60 Seater)
This will be followed by question and answer session.

SYNOPSIS:
A seemingly broken figure drags him self across an arid landscape. Armed and bloodied, he takes the time to remove what appears to be a pair of human incisor teeth lodged at the crown of his skull. Although in severe pain, he still manages to take in the headline of an old newspaper strewn on the dry ground. The paper reads: “Teacher shortage in Zimbabwe”.

It has been almost a year since Parker, a victim of (undiagnosed) post-war stress pathology, made the long arduous journey to a sleepy rural town to take up his new position as a substitute teacher. He is welcomed into the teaching community for he is an educator who comes ‘of good report’. Parker rents a humble shack dwelling at the back of the home of a raspy, and aged woman. The wily old landlady will come to mistrust the suspiciously withdrawn and detached tenant who prevents any entry to his room. 
        
Parker’s trouble in his new environment starts when he joins a teaching colleague, ‘Vuyani’, in a drinking session at a local tavern where he meets and is captivated by the young and exquisite ‘Nolitha’. The night ends in a heated sexual encounter.    
                                      
Parker is unprepared for what greets him the following day at school: Nolitha is 16 year-old student in his English class. But, for Parker it’s too late; he has tasted a passion and ecstasy new to him, and he is bewitched by the allure of this young beauty that the damaged and ‘invisible’ Parker wants as his own.
The illicit affair that ensues is intense, brief and dangerous. Parker knows no boundaries as he furtively pursues the young girl. To the guileless Nolitha, Parker is a man, he is her teacher, and her senior, and thus - he leads their ‘dance’. 

After the botched abortion of her teacher’s child, Nolitha stays away from school for 6 months and when Parker next sees her, she has a ‘regular’ boyfriend by her side, the hip and cool ‘Njabu’ - whom she can openly include in her life.                                               
Feeling rejected and unworthy, Parker’s unrequited love turns to obsession with force and speed that not even he can control. He is a ticking time bomb; he has killed before with impunity and won’t mind doing it again.

When Nolitha goes missing her family and school employers call in the police. Parker hurries from the school back to his shanty room where blood seeps through the walls, and a cracked mirror and blood smeared cricket bat show signs of a physical struggle. He has shown his young beauty queen all the love he is capable of, and now, dismembered, she has been packed away in a suitcase – to go with him on his future journey.

Maverick Police Constable ‘Arendse’ is on to Parker, and she decides to take the law into her own hands. Her plan goes array and a battered and bloodied Parker escapes: trudging along the barren landscape he steps upon an opportunity for a fresh start. According to a caption on an old strewn newspaper, there is a teacher shortage in Zimbabwe. A qualified educator like him shouldn't struggle to find a post. After all, he does come Of Good Report.

Introverted and seemingly gentle high school teacher Parker Sithole has a quiet passion for literature and is presented to a new school as a man "of good report". In a local bar Parker meets a mesmerizing young woman and falls for her - but the next day she walks into his classroom and he realizes that the blossoming love which has brought joy into his world is forbidden. Parker develops and obsession with his vivacious pupil and she returns his affections until their love story reaches a tragic end. The film is an intense and profoundly executed thriller following this deeply disturbed teacher who is externally "of good report" and yet hiding a grisly murder which preys on his mind as a local policewoman hunts him, coming closer and closer to the awful truth.

Day 4
14 November 2013
Screening of sixth film

Title: “Blitz Patrollie”:
Time: 6.15 pm
Duration: 110mins
Venue: Paramount Cinema: 25 Courtney Place Wellington CBD (open to public, 400 Seater)
This will be followed by question and answer session.

Synopsis:
Officer Rummeck “Rummy” Augustine is stationed in a little known police depot in the belly of the JHB CBD. He is a married man whose life has been taken over by the brutal beatings he receives from his physically abusive, evil mother-in-law and the ranting of his delinquent brother–in–law; both of whom have invaded his household. His partner on the contrary is an urban cowboy. The overzealous Ace Dikolobe can think of nothing better to do in the morning than to put on his “lucky” bulletproof vest and head out to kick some bad guy ass.

Whilst in a poor white neighbourhood, Rummy, Ace and their inept sniper colleagues, Braam and Jack, accidentally stumble upon one of South Africa’s biggest drug hauls in recent history. However, in the fanfare and media frenzy directly afterwards, the haul gets stolen from right under their noses. The prime suspects in the missing drug saga are the infamously lecherous Naidoo brothers. Seemingly double-crossed, the Naidoos are also scouring the city for the missing drugs.

Lambasted by their captain and ordered to stay off the drug case, denigrated by the entire nation and further humiliated by the arrival of members of the Advanced Crime Fighters, a special task force of ultra-sophisticated, suit wearing super cops, Rummy, Ace and their colleagues are forced to embark on a mission to clean up the station’s image with the public. What follows is a series of terrible blunders that land them in an even worse position than before.

After following the drug trail to the mansion of one of the country’s ministers, the duo bungle their way in and by so doing, put themselves in the cross hairs of the Provincial Police Commissioner. Under immense pressure to clean up the streets, she makes an example by suspending Rummy and Ace and threatens to close down the underperforming station. It is a sad day for Rummy and Ace who quickly spiral into depression and consider quitting the force for good. Will they get to save their jobs and the police station from closure? And equally importantly, can Rummy be man enough to stand up to his mother-in-law even if it means a fight, a fight where he would have to “moer” an old lady?

NB: FREE PASSES TO BE USED AS THERE WILL BE NO ENTRANCE FEE (FIRST COME FIRST SERVED)
(Free Tickets will be issued by Paramount Cinema)

VIP Entrance tickets will be reserved as and when confirmation for attendance is received
General Public tickets will be issued by Paramount Cinema at first come first served basis.

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