Quick little celebratory blog to let you all know that my friends' little movie has been accepted to the Cannes Film Festival. For those of you that don't know Cannes is THE film festival. So we are all terribly happy. There is much dancing and shouting and joyous, celebratory cartwheels.
All the more so because of the story that accompanies the news. It goes like this:
My friends, who come from America (motto: We may not be the only country in the world, but at least we're the biggest. dammit.) have been living in South Africa for the past few years and have been enjoying it immensely. So they, being filmmakers, decided to make a film while they were there. A good one. And so they did.
But, try as they might, they didn't make the deadline for some of the festivals they wanted to submit to. Sad. But they did submit to Cannes (motto: Nous sommes LE film festival) but of course, as all of you who have submitted films to Cannes must know, acceptance to Cannes depends mostly on the vague rules of Astrology and Voodoo and not at all on whether or not your film is any good.
Now, around this time someone at the Tribeca Film Festival (motto: Everyone come to New York, spend $10 and eat some popcorn, cause Martin Scorsese said so.) heard about my friends' movie. How this happened, I really have no idea, but my friends are the sorts of mysterious film people who I expect would have the kinds of friends that would mention in passing to Martin Scorsese that they had heard about this fabulous movie in South Africa and that it should be in his festival. And so the Tribeca people called my friends and asked if they could send a copy of the film to New York for possible inclusion in the festival. So now their premiereing at Tribeca. Crazy right?
And now, you may all be aware that this year is the tenth anniversary of democracy in South Africa. Even if you aren't, the people in Cannes are, and they have invited Nelson Mandela to come and speak at the festival. And, of course, they are looking to screen any and all South African films that they can get their hands on. And while my friends may be dirty americans, the entire cast of the movie, with the exception of one Cameroonian actor, are South African (the Cameroonian, if you're wondering, actually plays a Congolese guy in the movie) as is the vast majority of the crew. So, their movie, along with Nelson Mandela, will be the star of Cannes. We're hoping.
So if any of you are going to be in New York or Cannes, please do yourselves a favor and watch "Cape of Good Hope" and after that do my friend a favor and tell everyone you've ever met in your entire lives to go out and watch "Cape of Good Hope." Because that would be nice.