A
profoundly optimistic film
that arrives on the tenth anniversary
of the end of Apartheid, Cape of Good Hope is, in the words
of writer-director Mark Bamford, “a movie about people
just trying to live. It’s not about black and white, it’s
not about politics, but about
human beings. ”
In the tradition of such rich,
multi-layered, difficult-to-categorize
films as
Ang Lee’s Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, and
Robert Altman and John Sayles’s sociological slice-of-life pictures, Cape
of Good Hope beautifully interweaves a number of storylines, all revolving around
a Cape Town animal rescue shelter. The new South Africa is revealed in Cape of
Good Hope, a colorful and vibrant mosaic of love and hope.
The faces of Hope are: Jean
Claude (Eriq Ebouaney of
Raoul Peck’s award-winning
film, Lumumba), a refugee from war-torn Congo who finds himself torn between
love and the promise of asylum in the West; Lindiwe (Nthati Moshesh), a single
mother and housekeeper trying to make a life for herself and her son while finding
a way out of the township once and for all; Sharifa (Quanita Adams) and Habib
(David Isaacs), a young Muslim couple unable to have children of their own yet
desperate to have a family; Morne (Morne Visser), a recently widowed vet who
wants to believe that true love can strike twice; and Kate (Debbie Brown), the
emotionally guarded founder of the animal shelter, who seems to relate better
to stray dogs than to people.
Cape of Good
Hope is the first feature film written and directed by Mark
Bamford—award-winning director of the short film,
Hero—along with his wife, co-writer and producing partner,
Suzanne Kay. Themselves recent
transplants to South Africa, the couple found inspiration for
Cape of Good Hope through their
experiences working as volunteers
with children and refugees.
Filmed entirely on location
in the Cape Town coastal community
of Hout Bay, and cast solely
with African actors, Cape of Good Hope substitutes a hard-won,
deeply felt sense of humanism
for the clichés and political
bombast audiences are familiar
with from many films set in Africa.
Running
Time: 107 mins
Aspect
Ratio: 1:85
Dolby
Digital 5.1 Sound
