Hollywood comes to Africa: Vito Echevarria reports on Hollywood's new-found "love affair" with Africa, but questions why much of it is concentrated in South Africa.

More and more films about Africa have come out of Hollywood in recent years. One in particular caught more than the attention it deserved--Nicole Kidman's 2005 film The Interpreter, a political thriller about the attempted assassination of an African head of state.

There is a scene in the film where a child solider guns down a white rebel inside a deserted football stadium. A keen eye notices a flag on top of the stadium--that of Mozambique!

It turns out that the African scenes in the movie were indeed shot in Mozambique (despite the fact that the storyline involves a fictitious Southern African country whose political history happens to be similar to Zimbabwe's. Anyone schooled in the contemporary history of Mozambique, would not fail to notice the irony of a country once plagued by civil war now being used by major Hollywood film companies to shoot African-themed movies.

A more recent Hollywood film that also used Mozambique for some of its scenes was Leonardo DiCaprio's blockbuster Blood Diamond.

Even though the film is about the role of the illicit diamond trade in wartorn Sierra Leone in West Africa, much of it was shot in Mozambique. Other portions of that film were also shot in nearby South Africa. Scenes that were supposed to have taken place in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown were actually filmed in Port Elizabeth in South Africa.

Apparently, African-themed movies like Blood Diamond and The Interpreter have proven to be just the tip of the iceberg in what has become a new wave of high-budget Hollywood films shot in Africa.

Such films include Catch a Fire, a political thriller about the true story of the ANC rebel, Patrick Chamusso, starring American actors Tim Robbins and Derek Luke; The Last King of Scotland, an account of a young Scottish physician who became Idi Amin's personal doctor in Uganda, starring American actor Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin--whose captivating performance won him a Golden Globe and an Oscar for best actor.

Others include Hotel Rwanda, the Don Cheadle film about a true-life story of a Hutu hotel manager's struggle during the 1994 genocide; and The Constant Gardener, starring veteran Hollywood actors Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weitz, which was shot in Kenya.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This trend is all the more noteworthy, since South Africa (the site for most Hollywood productions in Africa) was once subject to a cultural boycott because of its apartheid policies. In fact, there was an uproar in certain Hollywood and activist circles when Dolph Lundgren made the Cold War film Red Scorpion in Namibia in 1989, during the apartheid era.

So what is driving today's film wave? Genevieve Hofmeyr, a film producer at Moonlighting Films (based in Cape Town, South Africa) explains: "Hollywood needs new stories, new backdrops, new talent, and Africa has been largely untapped," he says.

"Secondly, with word spreading that Hollywood films can be logistically and successfully shot in Africa, this awareness has resulted in a growing interest in African material."

The South African government itself, noting the economic benefits, has also played a major role in bringing the American film industry to its doorstep.

Says Hofmeyr: "In 2004, the South African government introduced a film production tax incentive scheme. One of the aims was to increase foreign investment in South Africa by attracting big budget Hollywood films, and this has tripled foreign movie production in the country." There is also the "Nelson Mandela magic". But to do a professional job, if one was making a film set in Kenya or Malawi, one should naturally film the entire movie or most of it in Kenya or Malawi because the people, the language, and the culture are all different.

As noted by Hofmeyr: "Thousands of jobs have been created as a result of these films in South Africa. There has also been really meaningful skills transfer and local skills are now of a world class standard.

"Furthermore, the recent films have given the wonderful South African acting talent a platform to be exposed to the rest of the world. From our company alone, since 2004, we have done seven major Hollywood Productions (including Blood Diamond, Catch a Fire, The Interpreter, the Angelina Jolie film Beyond Borders, and Will Smith's film Ali) injecting approximately $150m into South Africa's economy. And in the last 18 months we have employed in excess of 3,000 people."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Hofmeyr continues: "We have a number of casting agencies who represent South African talent--amongst the best are Moonyeenn Lee & Associates and Penny Charteris. Many South African actors have been getting work from these productions including Bonnie Henna, Tony Kgoroge, Tumisho Masha, Marius Weyers, and Arnold Vosloo to name but a few."

An unusual "independent" film may have also alerted Hollywood film companies to the potential of making top-notch movies in Africa. In 2003, a stunt-packed action film called Critical Assignment was made by the European brewing company, Guinness, as an elaborate subliminal product placement effort.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

That film, which was about an intrepid African reporter who returns home to his nondescript Southern African country, uncovered a plot involving corrupt local officials who attempt to divert funds meant for a water project to finance a nefarious arms deal.

Critical Assignment starred Michael Power (who previously starred in various Guinness ad campaigns in Africa). He was intentionally not given a particular nationality by Guinness, in order for movie goers in its target markets (Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, etc) to better identify with him. For its own marketing purposes, Guinness deliberately made the film in six different African countries (complete with a mostly African cast and crew)--giving Hollywood filmmakers notice of the benefits of filming on location in Africa.

Ironically, despite its smooth production and solid storyline, Critical Assignment was never shown commercially outside of African cinema houses, and was limited to screenings at international film events like New York's "African Film Festival".

Those who managed to catch that film would have noticed that one of its Guinness-drinking supporting characters went on to play a Hutu militia leader in Hotel Rwanda. There is no dispute that South Africa itself is taking its new-found position as "Hollywood Africa" very seriously. In August 2006, the country's first major Hollywood-level film studio (Dreamworld Film City) was officially launched in Cape Town.

With construction already underway, the studio is expected to be up-and-running by 2009. Dreamworld is expected to generate 4,000 to 8,000 jobs during its construction period. It will eventually have four sound stages surrounded by offices and warehouses. Dreamworld aims to develop a complete "one-stop-shop" production facility to help local producers secure deals and make Dreamworld the "home of South African production".

According to Anant Singh, chairman of Dreamworld, "the studios have been designed to meet both local and international film needs--we want to bring the best producers in the world to our facilities here in Cape Town." Though the South African filmmaker, Khalo Matabane, is happy to see the international film industry generating work for South African and other African actors, he is still concerned about the emphasis of Hollywood's African films being made from a white point of view.

"I would like to make films with South African leads," Matabane says. "I believe there is talent here. I have just done a TV mini-drama series with young actors. They were brilliant. We need to nurture that talent. They can't keep playing second fiddle (to Hollywood actors from America and elsewhere). Why are Hollywood film companies not giving African filmmakers the money to make movies about Africa? I think they would bring a certain complexity or even nuances that would enrich the films."

Another African country that has ironically become the centre of attention for filmmakers has been Rwanda. Along with Hotel Rwanda and a string of independent documentaries about the 1994 genocide, a Canadian film called Shake Hands with the Devil (based on the book of the same title) opened in major movie houses throughout Canada last September.

The film covers the true-life story of Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian Lt-Gen who was in charge of the 1994 UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the genocide. The film addresses Dallaire's frustrated efforts to convince the UN bureaucracy and leadership to act on the unfolding event.

More Hollywood productions will undoubtedly be shot in Africa in the coming years, but as Matabane argues, how much of it will be truly African or use African talent remains to be seen.