Just as they did last year, South Africa's National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) will once again take a delegation of films and filmmakers to the Cannes International Film Festival, which takes place later this month - from the 15th until the 26th of May. The goal here is to demonstrate that South African cinema can compete on the international stage, and show that stories by South African filmmakers can resonate in the international cinema market place. One of the films that will be presented this year is the buddy cop comedy set in Johannesburg, written by comedian Kagiso Lediga, titled Blitz Patrollie. The film chronicles the...

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Octavia Spencer will star alongside Kevin Costner in a drama titled Black And White, which IM Global is taking to Cannes to sell to international distributors.Written and directed by and actor Mike Binder, the film, which Costner is coproducing with Binder and Todd Lewis, centers on Elliot Anderson (Costner) an attorney widowed after his wife dies in a car crash, and who also is raising his bi-racial granddaughter Eloise, since his daughter died in childbirth. As he struggles with his grief, Elliot's world is turned upside-down when the child's African American grandmother Rowena (played by Octavia Spencer) demands that Eloise be brought under the care of her African American...

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Last summer I profiled a new U.K. made short film, The Third Choice, made by a then 20 year old black British filmmaker Moses Ssebandeke, and produced by his brother Isaac Ssebandeke. And now Isaac is striking out on his own, writing and directing a short film titled It Is What It is, which sounds and looks pretty intriguing. According to Isaac, his film, which he's co-producing with Yrsa Daley-Ward, based on her own short story, and who will also co-star in the film along Clifford Samuel, tells the story of a pair of siblings "who only speak twice a year. We find them at the funeral of their father, a man whom they both greatly detested. Yrsa, our narrator...

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Lance Reddick has joined the growing cast for the comedy Search Party, a film that centers on two men who travel to Mexico to save their stranded friend and reunite him with his girlfriend. Reddick joins the already-cast T.J. Miller, Adam Pally, Thomas Middleditch and Shannon Woodward in a film that will be directed by Scot Armstrong for Universal. Reddick will play the boss of the 3 men, who grows increasingly annoyed and impatient with their antics. The film will be produced by Neal H. Moritz, Ravi Nandan and Paul Brooks. The busy Reddick who, last year, launched his own production company to package high-concept projects for himself, was last seen on the big screen,...

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Almost a year ago, last spring, I wrote about documentary filmmaker Eric Schachter's work-in-process, Harlem USA, though, at the time, he rejected the title of director because he believed that his film "was directed by the people that it is about." Later that summer in London and Montreal, Schachter held, in effect, two test screenings to gauge audiences reactions to an early cut of the film, and he said that the experience gave him a totally new perspective on what he created, but not in the way you would expect. The test audiences felt that the film was too divisive, and that there weren't other voices in the film which reflected those of financially well-off newcomers ...

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In watching this trailer, I actually found myself missing the Lee Daniels I've become accustomed to. If I didn't know that Daniels directed this, I would've been shocked to find out that he did. This plays so straight and narrow, and thus drab, with the heavy traditional Hollywood trailer soundtrack music, and scenes oozing with earnestness. I don't know... I'm not motivated to see it based on what I see here. The stories around the making of the film just may be more interesting than the film itself. For starters, you might recall Harry Lennix, who said he was offered a part in The Butler, after reading the script, called it "N*ggerfied... Historical Porn." And...

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The fact that the series never did return after the Christmas holiday break, should've been a clue - especially when BET never addressed its absence from the network's winter 2013 programming lineup (we inquired, but got no response from them nor Holmes); also the show's social networking accounts (Facebook and Twitter notably) haven't been updated since the start of the new year. It's unfortunate, but not at all a surprise. From the show's debut, I was concerned with what seemed like a lack of an identity, as well as direction. And when the network demoted the program to just a night a week, due to low ratings (from a series high 1 million for its debut episode to averaging below...

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Catching up on my emails and saw this announcement (via press release) sent to me a few days ago. In short, publisher Abrams ComicArts has announced that the company will publish a graphic novel based on Octavia E. Butler's classic novel Kindred. Abrams acquired rights to the novel from Writers House literary agent Merrilee Heifetz, and will be edited by Carol Burrell under the direction of Abrams ComicArts editorial director Charles Kochman. The graphic novel will be adapted by Damian Duffy and illustrated by John Jennings, with a fall 2014 publish date planned under the Abrams ComicArts imprint. I should note that, as maybe one of Butler's most...

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As we announced in December, the one and only legend Sidney Poitier has penned his first fiction novel - a sci-fi/thriller titled Montaro Caine which has now officially gone on sale, today, May 7, 2013. Described by Poitier himself as "sort of like Indiana Jones, but better," the synopsis for the seemingly epic read, follows: A baby is born with a coin in her hand. An orphan crafts a mysterious wooden object. The CEO of a large corporation finds himself under extraordinary pressure at work and at home. And on a remote hilltop on a Caribbean island, a medicine man seems to understand the meaning of all these events and to hold the key to the future. Montaro Caine, CEO of the...

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The music industry coverage-heavy TV network known as Fuse has announced its first scripted series, titled The Hustle - a hip-hop-themed dramedy that will follow aspiring artists as they try to find their place and break into the hip-hop universe. The series will be followed by The Hustle After Party, a series taped in Fuse's New York street front studio, which will feature interviews and performances from hip hop stars, as well as appearances by the cast. The series will premiere on June 19, at 11pm/10c. Full details on the new scripted series via press release from Fuse follow below: THE FIRST SCRIPTED SERIES FROM FUSE - THE HUSTLECreated and Executive...

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