#OnTheBigScreen: Kandasamys: The Wedding, Pet Sematary and Little

Capernaum (Chaos)

While steeped in the quiet routines of ordinary people, Capernaum is a film with an expansive palette. Without warning, it can ignite with emotional intensity, surprise with unexpected tenderness and inspire with flashes of poetic imagery.

It follows Zain (Zain al Raffea), as he journeys from gutsy, streetwise child to hardened 12-year-old “adult”: fleeing his abusive, negligent parents, surviving through his wits on the streets, taking care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw) and her baby son Yonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole), being jailed for a violent crime, and finally, seeking justice in a courtroom.

Although it is set in the depths of a society’s systematic inhumanity, it is ultimately a hopeful film that stirs the heart as deeply as it cries out for action.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film, this Lebanese film was made with a cast of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own. Following her script, Nadine Labaki placed her performers in scenes and asked them to react spontaneously with their own words and gestures. When the non-actors’ instincts diverged from the written script, Labaki adapted the screenplay to follow them.

Read more here.

Kandasamys: The Wedding

Like viewers get drawn into the inimitable characteristics of a Harlem or Bronx in New York, so too will Kandasamys transport them into the vibrant and colourful suburb, allowing them a first-hand authentic experience of the local nuances of Indian South African culture, especially since at the heart of the story is a big, fat Indian South African wedding.

Director Jayan Moodley chats Kandasamys: The Wedding

Daniel Dercksen  17 Apr 2019

Whilst the setting for the film is indeed unique, its theme most certainly has universal appeal. Essentially, it explores how the son is emotionally torn between his love for his mother and his wife-to-be and how mothers, no matter how old their kids, want to have a very real impact and say in their children’s lives. The story comes alive as the two mother’s scheme and plot, and push their agendas, ever so subtly, until an explosion becomes inevitable.

Light-hearted and entertaining, the story is supported by an array of colourful characters that celebrate the rich way of life in Chatsworth and serves as a reminder of the important value of the mother, aiming to bring characters to life and to take movie-making in KZN to yet another level.

Director/writer Jayan Moodley reprises her roles in the sequel and is all set to make the big screen come alive with more side-splitting comedy and heart touching moments as the two Chatsworth families plan the wedding of the year (or if the Mother of the Bride would have it – the wedding of the decade in spectacular Kandasamy style).

Pet Sematary

Stephen King’s 1983 novel Pet Sematary has riveted generations of enthusiastic readers as a prime example of the writer’s gift for melding the everyday with the extraordinary to create supernatural thrillers that explore our darkest impulses and is now unleashed with fury with the release of a superb retelling on the big screen.

Poignant, petrifying and impossible to put down, the saga of the Creed family is a dark and terrifying parable about love and loss from one of the most popular fiction writers in history.

It follows Dr Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near the family's new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbour, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.

Directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer and written by Jeff Buhler, from a screen story by Matt Greenberg.

Read more here.

The Queen’s Corgi

The animated adventure of Rex, the British monarch’s most beloved dog, who loses track of his mistress and stumbles across a clan with dogs of all kinds confronting and fighting each other.

During his epic journey to return to the queen, Rex falls in love and discovers his true self.

The film is directed by Ben Stassen and Vincent Kesteloot and written by John R Smith and Rob Sprackling.

Little

An irreverent new comedy about the power of sisterhood and having a second chance to grow up – and glow up – right.

Girls Trip’s Regina Hall and Black-ish’s Marsai Martin both star as Jordan Sanders – all as the take-no-prisoners tech mogul adult version of Jordan and Martin as the 13-year-old version of her who wakes up in her adult self’s penthouse just before a do-or-die presentation.

Insecure’s Issa Rae plays Jordan’s long-suffering assistant April, the only one in on the secret that her daily tormentor is now trapped in an awkward tween body just as everything is on the line.

Little is directed by Tina Gordon with a story by Tracy Oliver and a screenplay by Tracy Oliver and Tina Gordon, based on an idea by the film’s teen actress Marsai Martin.

Saint Judy

The inspirational true story of immigration attorney Judy Wood and the historic court fight she leads that changed American asylum law forever. In one of her first cases, Judy represents a woman forced to flee her home country after being persecuted by the Taliban for opening a school for girls.

While juggling her life as a single mother, Judy fights tenacious battles in and out of court. As Judy fights to save her client's life, the case reaches the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and ultimately Judy succeeds in changing the entire Law of Asylum in the United States. This case has saved the lives of thousands of other persecuted women around the world.

Like Erin Brockovich, it tells the story of a remarkable woman who overcame tremendous odds and reminds us how one person can change the world.

Directed by Sean Hanish from a screenplay by Dmitry Portnoy.

Read more about the latest and upcoming film releases: writingstudio.co.za/lets-go-to-the-movies.