U-Carmen eKhayelitsha ("Carmen in Khayelitsha"), a cinematic adaptation of Bizet's opera set in a South African township and sung in the Xhosa language, has won the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
The film grew out of an English- and Xhosa-language stage production of Carmen by South Africa's Dimpho di Kopane (formerly Broomhill Opera Company) which has received wide acclaim in festival appearances on four continents since 2001. The music and stage directors of the production, Charles Hazlewood and Mark Dornford-May, reprised their jobs for the movie version, as did mezzo-soprano Pauline Malefane, who performed the title role.
The Reuters news agency reports that U-Carmen eKhayelitsha — the first African film to take the Golden Bear and the first feature film of any kind made in the Xhosa language — was a "rank outsider" and a surprise winner, beating out such favorites as Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage, a German film about a heroine of the anti-Nazi resistance; Paradise Now, about two young Palestinian suicide bombers; Alexander Sokurov's The Sun, which depicts Japanese Emperor Hirohito's surrender at the end of World War II; and Le dernier Mitterand, about the last days of the late French president.
According to Reuters, Malefane told reporters at the awards ceremony that she had to rush back to South Africa to continue work on a new film in which she plays a very different role — the Virgin Mary. |