{"id":10498,"date":"2020-08-18T12:27:51","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T10:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=10498"},"modified":"2020-08-18T12:27:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T10:27:55","slug":"award-winning-basotho-film-to-open-durban-international-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2020\/08\/18\/award-winning-basotho-film-to-open-durban-international-film-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning Basotho Film To Open Durban International Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><em>\u2018This Is Not A Burial, It\u2019s A Resurrection\u2019, a haunting tribute to land, community and ancestry, stars the late, much-loved SA actress Mary Twala in her swan song performance.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT&#039;S A RESURRECTION Official Trailer 2020\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/378114953?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The first film from Lesotho, made by a Mosotho filmmaker, to screen at an international festival, \u2018This Is Not A Burial, It\u2019s A Resurrection\u2019, directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, was viewed by critics as one of the best films at this year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival, held in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The visually striking drama, set in the mountains of Lesotho, opens with an elderly widow named Mantoa (Mary Twala), grieving the loss of her son. Determined to die and be laid to rest with her family, her plans are interrupted when she discovers that the village and its cemetery will be forcibly resettled to make way for a dam reservoir. Refusing to let the dead be desecrated, she finds a new will to live and ignites a collective spirit of defiance within her community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The film won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Visionary Filmmaking at Sundance. Allan Hunter of Screen International said, \u201c\u2019It offers a vivid, beautifully crafted reflection on identity, community and the tension between respecting age-old traditions and accepting the seemingly unstoppable march of progress.\u201d On Twitter, Los Angeles film critic Robert Koehler wrote: \u201cAdd Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese\u2019s name to the ranks of great young filmmakers with his first narrative feature \u2018This Is Not A Burial, It\u2019s A Resurrection\u2019, a work of extraordinary poetics and emotion, an unforgettable giant from Lesotho.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The film continues to travel internationally, and has taken home six further awards, including a Best Actress prize for Twala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Twala\u2019s role, Variety magazine\u2019s Guy Lodge wrote, \u201c[Twala] gets the film showcase of a lifetime here, her wiry body language alternately trembling with desolation and defiance, keeping Mantoa\u2019s mission riveting even as it fails to unfold along standard procedural lines. Mosese\u2019s script skips and glitches across stages of the process, as if in sync with the way Mantoa sees her own place in the world of the living: half in and half out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was an incredible, life-changing experience birthing this film,\u201d says producer Cait Pansegrouw of lauded production company URUCU. \u201cWe lived in the mountains, with limited access to water and electricity and fought against extreme weather conditions, all while transporting Ma Mary to location on horseback. For it to be opening DIFF, a festival very close to my heart and in my home province, is extremely special. I know both Mary and casting director Moonyeenn Lee, both of whom are no longer with us, will be with us in spirit as we bring this film to our local audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, the film is deeply personal. \u201cWhen I was a child, my family was evicted from our home,\u201d he says. \u201cMy grandmother\u2019s village is undergoing forced resettlement right now. My experience of displacement has significantly impacted who I am and how I see the world. Urucu believed in me from the beginning and Cait\u2019s passion in particular was the driving force behind \u2018Resurrection\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The film also stars film and television icon Jerry Mofokeng Wa Makhetha (\u2018Tsotsi\u2019, \u2018Fanie Fourie\u2019s Lobola\u2019, \u2018Five Fingers for Marseilles\u2019, \u2018Four Corners, \u2018Scandal\u2019, \u2018Soul City\u2019, \u2018Yizo Yizo\u2019, \u2018Isidingo\u2019), Makhaola Ndebele (\u2018Machine Gun Preacher\u2019, \u2018Money Monster\u2019, \u2018Nomzamo\u2019) and Tseko Monaheng (\u2018Naka la Moitheri\u2019, \u2018Five Fingers for Marseilles\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018This Is Not A Burial, It\u2019s A Resurrection\u2019 will release in South Africa in 2021. It will be distributed by Indigenous Film Distribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018This Is Not A Burial, It\u2019s A Resurrection\u2019, a haunting tribute to land, community and ancestry, stars the late, much-loved SA actress Mary Twala in her swan song performance. The first film from Lesotho, made by a Mosotho filmmaker, to screen at an international festival, \u2018This Is Not A Burial, It\u2019s A Resurrection\u2019, directed by&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2020\/08\/18\/award-winning-basotho-film-to-open-durban-international-film-festival\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Award-winning Basotho Film To Open Durban International Film Festival<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[183],"class_list":["post-10498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festival","tag-diff","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}