Little Bird’s first South African production, 'Sophiatown' has won the award for Best Documentary at the Cape Town World Cinema Festival 2003. The announcement was made at a gala evening on Sunday 16 November. The festival, which forms part of the 8th Edition of the Sithengi Film and Television market, showcases World Cinema, with Africa at its heart.
'Sophiatown' celebrates the great popular jazz music of the 1950's in South Africa; a rich tradition deserving international attention. Director Pascale Lamche, traces the music, uncovers the artists who created it and the unique culture in which it thrived, concentrated in Sophiatown, Johannesburg's own Harlem, which fuelled by liberation politics until its destruction by the Apartheid regime. The film features such household names from the jazz world as Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Abdullah Ibrahim, Jonas Gwangwa and Caiphus Semenya.
The film was produced by Little Bird in association with Ochre Moving Pictures for BBC in association with France 2, TV2/Danmark, Radio Telefis Éireann, IKON and The Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Limited with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Community.
Little Bird have completed five feature films this year, including; Trauma, directed by Marc Evans and starring Colin Firth and Mena Survari; and In My Fathers Den starring Matthew MacFadyen and Miranda Otto; the company are currently in post-production with their second South African production, Accused # 1: Nelson Mandela, a sister project to Sophiatown, this feature documentary will revisit the treason trial of Nelson Mandela.
Other Southern African documentaries in competition at the Cape Town World Cinema Festival included the world première of Karoo Kitaar Blues (d/ Liza Key), the 2003 Jameson Audience Award winning Casa del Musica (d/ Jonathan de Vries), The Man who stole my Mother’s Face (d/ Cathy Henkel), Zimbabwe 2002 (d/ Farai Sevenzo) and Zimbabwe Countdown (d/ Michael Raeburn).
