Protest action by cultural activists has seen several cinemas forced to cancel screenings of \u2018Inxeba\u2019 (The Wound), a film which has been screened across the continent and around the world to widespread critical acclaim. To date, it has won 19 awards at 44 festivals in more than 25 countries worldwide including South Africa. On the 2nd of February, it was announced that the film has been nominated for 8 South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAS).<\/p>\n
In an interview on ANN7 last night Man and Boy Foundation executive director Nkululeko Nxesi said \u201c99% of the South Africa population are against this movie\u201d. This was contradicted based on the number of cinema attendances on opening Friday 2 February. \u2018Inxeba\u2019 was the best performing film at 7 of the sites where it is currently playing for the day.<\/p>\n
Indigenous Film Distribution, the company releasing the film in South Africa, has pointed out that this statement is blatantly untrue. \u201cAhead of its opening weekend, pre-screenings were held around the country, and 85% of people who attended gave it the thumbs up,” says managing director Helen Kuun. \u201cIt was also the number one film at seven of the venues where it screened on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since July 2017, the film has been screened at venues around the country to encourage discussion and dialogue between the filmmakers and various audiences. \u201cWe took the film into several spaces across the country, particularly those that do not have access to cinemas in their communities and made absolutely sure to do this in the Eastern Cape above all.\u201d stated producer Cait Pansegrouw. \u201cThere was no focus on specific sectors of the population, as stated by the Man and Boy Foundation representative on ANN7 yesterday. All screenings were open to anyone who RSVP\u2019d to attend.\u201d she continued. \u201cInxeba also showed at South African film festivals last year, 2 in Kwa-Zulu Natal and 1 in the Western Cape. Again, these screenings were open to members of the public. To imply that we purposely excluded certain people or organisations from seeing the film is just not true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Inxeba\u2019 is not the first piece of work to speak about initiation and I\u2019m certain it won\u2019t be the last,\u201d Trengove said. \u201cIt\u2019s a complete fallacy to say that the film exposes anything that is not already known. I must state categorically that we did a tremendous amount of research, working with Xhosa men who have been through initiation, in writing and developing this film.\u2018<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody is forced to see \u2018Inxeba\u2019. But South Africans have every right to watch and engage with it.\u201d added producer Elias Ribeiro. \u201cProtestors at several cinemas warned staff that they would follow them home and kill them if the screening of the film went ahead. This is not acceptable in a democratic society.\u201d<\/p>\n
The filmmakers have submitted a compliant to the Human Rights Commission, following Friday\u2019s protests.<\/p>\n
The Film and Publications Board (FPB) has rated the movie 16, advising that it contains scenes with strong Language, Sex, and Nudity (16 LSN). The FBB has advised that despite complaints that have been received based on perceived cultural insensitivity, restricting the launch of the film would be a direct contravention to Section 16 of the South African Constitution as well as the provisions of the Films and Publication Act No.96 of 1996 as amended.<\/p>\n
\u201cInxeba is not going to go away and we are invested in making sure that people who do want to see the film will get to do so.\u201d said Trengove.<\/p>\n
\u2018Inxeba\u2019 is currently screening at selected cinemas around the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protest action by cultural activists has seen several cinemas forced to cancel screenings of \u2018Inxeba\u2019 (The Wound), a film which has been screened across the continent and around the world to widespread critical acclaim. To date, it has won 19 awards at 44 festivals in more than 25 countries worldwide including South Africa. On the… Continue reading Inxeba Filmmakers Fight Back Against Baseless Accusations, Death Threats<\/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":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6026","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=6026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}