Country: USA
Year: 1989
Duration: 106'
South Africa, 1976: Ben Du Toit, a teacher at a white school and a former rugby star, lives a comfortable bourgeois life without questioning his country’s racial system. But when his Black gardener Gordon (Winston Ntshona) tells him that his son was beaten and taken away by the police, Du Toit looks into the case. He gradually becomes aware of apartheid and pays for this with his own life. Based on a novel of social critique by André Brink, at the time it was the first Hollywood studio movie to be directed by a Black female filmmaker; a cast of stars (Sutherland, as well as Susan Sarandon) and a scene-stealing Brando as the liberal lawyer.
Biography
film director
Euzhan Palcy
(Fort-de-France, Martinique, France, 1958) is a French director and producer from Martinique. She studied in Paris but has maintained strong ties with her country of origin and debuted as a director in 1983 with Rue Cases-Nègres, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Cesar Award for Best First Film. She was the first black director to win either award and the first female director to win a Cesar. In 1989, she filmed A Dry White Season in Hollywood, based on the novel by André Brink and starring Marlon Brando and Donald Sutherland, becoming the first black woman to both direct a Hollywood film and direct an actor (Brando) to an Oscar nomination - making her the only woman to ever direct the icon. Over the following years, she has dedicated herself to supporting Martinique’s cause with documentaries and TV movies, and in 2022 she received an Honorary Oscar for her significant contributions to international cinema.
FILMOGRAFIA
The Messenger (tv, 1975), Rue Cases-Nègres (Via delle capanne negre () (1983), A Dry White Season (Un’arida stagione bianca, 1989), Siméon (1992), Aimé Césaire, une voix pour l’histoire (serie tv, 1995), The Wonderful World of Disney (serie tv, 1998), The Killing Yard (Il massacro di Attica, tv, 2001), Parcours de dissidents (tv, 2006), Les Mariées de l’isle Bourbon (serie tv, 2007).
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR: Euzhan Palcy. STORY: from the novel by André Brink. SCREENPLAY: Colin Welland, Euzhan Palcy. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pierre-William Glenn, Kelvin Pike. EDITING: Glenn Cunningham, Sam O’Steen. PRODUCTION DESIGN: John Fenner, Michael Philips, Alan Tomkins, Peter James. COSTUMES: Charles Knode. MUSIC: Dave Grusin. CAST: Donald Sutherland, Susan Sarandon, Marlon Brando, Janet Suzman, Zakes Mokae, Jürgen Prochnow, Winston Ntshona, Thoko Ntshinga, Susannah Harker, Rowen Elmes, Stella Dickin, David De Keyser, John Kani, Richard Wilson, Michael Gambon, Ronald Pickup, Paul Brooke. PRODUCTION: Paula Weinstein per Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
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