7 November 2005
South African film Cape of Good Hope opens in New York theatres on Thursday, fresh from award-winning appearances at the Toronto, Denver and Austin Film Festivals.
'About people just trying to live'
The film, shot entirely on location in Hout Bay near Cape Town, has a number of storylines with characters that intersect and coincide about the town's animal shelter.
Cape of Good Hope has been compared to the films of Robert Altman and John Sayles in terms of its narrative style.
It is, said 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."
This is Bamford's first full length feature. He previously won acclaim for Hero, a short film.
South African cast
Cape of Good Hope is produced by Susan Kay, Bamford's wife.
The film has an entirely African and South African cast, including Nthathi Moshesh, David Isaacs and Morne Visser.
Eriq Ebouaney, of the award winning Lumumba, stars as Jean Claude, a Congolese refugee.
'Freedom'
Critic Roger Ebert called the film "wonderful" and said that, along with other South African films at the Toronto International Film Festival, it expressed "a new freedom for South African cinema."
The other South African films represented at Toronto were uCarmen eKhayelitsha, Tsotsi, and Khalo Matabane's Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon.
Cape of Good Hope opens at the Angelika Film Centre in New York on Thursday, before moving on to other major American cities later this year.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
