Released in South Africa on 15 November 1951, Cry, the Beloved Country was among the
very first feature films of Sidney Poitier‘s long career. The then 24-year-old plays Theophilus Msimangu, a reverend who assists fellow minister Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) in nurturing his ill sister and locating his son Absalom (Lionel Ngakane), who has left without contact. Their cause takes them through Johannesburg and the newly imposed apartheid system, exposing its layers of injustice and dysfunction.
Cry, the Beloved Country is novel in its presentation of black African perspectives some 15 years before the civil rights pictures of the 1960s, such as Poitier’s own Look Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. Those two films are likely to feature in any retrospective of cinema and race, but not Cry, the Beloved Country.
Why is that? Well, the pacing is deliberate; characters speak at length and often about banal details.
very first feature films of Sidney Poitier‘s long career. The then 24-year-old plays Theophilus Msimangu, a reverend who assists fellow minister Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) in nurturing his ill sister and locating his son Absalom (Lionel Ngakane), who has left without contact. Their cause takes them through Johannesburg and the newly imposed apartheid system, exposing its layers of injustice and dysfunction.
Cry, the Beloved Country is novel in its presentation of black African perspectives some 15 years before the civil rights pictures of the 1960s, such as Poitier’s own Look Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. Those two films are likely to feature in any retrospective of cinema and race, but not Cry, the Beloved Country.
Why is that? Well, the pacing is deliberate; characters speak at length and often about banal details.
- 10/18/2023
- by Jack Hawkins
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Stars: Canada Lee, Charles Carson, Sidney Poitier, Joyce Carey, Geoffrey Keen, Vivien Clinton, Michael Goodliffe, Albertina Temba, Edric Connor, Lionel Ngakane, Charles McRae | Written by John Howard Lawson | Directed by Zoltan Korda
Released in celebration of Black History Month, Studio Canal reveal this 4k Restoration of the seminal British classic from 1951, Cry, The Beloved Country. Not only do you get the 4k restoration of the movie from director Zoltan Korda, but there’s also new extras, and archive footage including a documentary on cinema under apartheid and a 16-page booklet.
So, why is the movie so important? Now over 70 years old, it features a moving, and emotional story, played out by some fabulous actors and, it feels very much ahead of its time covering the racial injustices of the period.
Cry, The Beloved Country was shot on location in South Africa (with interior shots in the U.K.), which was...
Released in celebration of Black History Month, Studio Canal reveal this 4k Restoration of the seminal British classic from 1951, Cry, The Beloved Country. Not only do you get the 4k restoration of the movie from director Zoltan Korda, but there’s also new extras, and archive footage including a documentary on cinema under apartheid and a 16-page booklet.
So, why is the movie so important? Now over 70 years old, it features a moving, and emotional story, played out by some fabulous actors and, it feels very much ahead of its time covering the racial injustices of the period.
Cry, The Beloved Country was shot on location in South Africa (with interior shots in the U.K.), which was...
- 10/12/2023
- by Alain Elliott
- Nerdly
Moonyeenn Lee, a legendary South African casting director and agent who cast films such as “Blood Diamond,” “Hotel Rwanda” and “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” died Saturday due to complications caused by the coronavirus in Johannesburg. She was 76.
Lee’s passing was confirmed by a representative in Johannesburg and announced on a Facebook page for her agency Moonyeenn Lee & Associates (Mla).
Lee was renowned in her native South Africa and boasted 47 years in the film industry, earning a lifetime achievement award named for Lionel Ngakane from the South African Film & Television Awards in 2017. She was also the first South African member of AMPAS and the Television Academy.
Also Read: Haruma Miura, Japanese Actor and Star of 'Attack on Titan,' Dies of Apparent Suicide at 30
Lee was also one of South Africa’s best-known agents through her company Moonyeenn Lee & Associates (Mla). In 2003, Lee was nominated to the National...
Lee’s passing was confirmed by a representative in Johannesburg and announced on a Facebook page for her agency Moonyeenn Lee & Associates (Mla).
Lee was renowned in her native South Africa and boasted 47 years in the film industry, earning a lifetime achievement award named for Lionel Ngakane from the South African Film & Television Awards in 2017. She was also the first South African member of AMPAS and the Television Academy.
Also Read: Haruma Miura, Japanese Actor and Star of 'Attack on Titan,' Dies of Apparent Suicide at 30
Lee was also one of South Africa’s best-known agents through her company Moonyeenn Lee & Associates (Mla). In 2003, Lee was nominated to the National...
- 7/20/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
The BFI's double bill of The Little Ones and Jemima + Johnny depicts the multiculturalism of mid-60s London without letting race dominate the narrative
LP Hartley once said: "The past is another country – they do things differently there." When I sat down and watched Jim O'Connolly's moving 1965 feature film The Little Ones, accompanied by Lionel Ngakane's 1966 short Jemima + Johnny, I realised how true that is. In these rather beguiling films about the innocence of children and their capacity for binding communities, I not only saw a London that I failed to recognise, but came face to face with my own past. Or at least that of my father.
Jemima + Johnny was shot in part on the street where my father had lived since arriving from Grenada three years previously: Moorhouse Road, London W2. It was a few years before I born, but to see the streets and the...
LP Hartley once said: "The past is another country – they do things differently there." When I sat down and watched Jim O'Connolly's moving 1965 feature film The Little Ones, accompanied by Lionel Ngakane's 1966 short Jemima + Johnny, I realised how true that is. In these rather beguiling films about the innocence of children and their capacity for binding communities, I not only saw a London that I failed to recognise, but came face to face with my own past. Or at least that of my father.
Jemima + Johnny was shot in part on the street where my father had lived since arriving from Grenada three years previously: Moorhouse Road, London W2. It was a few years before I born, but to see the streets and the...
- 4/19/2010
- by Kwame Kwei-Armah
- The Guardian - Film News
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