Sophie Okonedo in SKIN: Black Daughter of White Parents
Sophie Okonedo in Skin
Winner of four audience awards, including at the AFI Dallas and Santa Barbara film festivals, Skin tells the factually inspired (and quite curious) story of Sandra Laing (Hotel Rwanda’s Academy Award nominee Sophie Okonedo as an adult; Ella Ramangwane as child), the "black" daughter of "white" Afrikaner parents (veterans Sam Neill and Alice Krige), who until then — South Africa in the 1950s — had been unaware that they must have had some black ancestors.
Though raised as a white girl by her parents, Sandra soon discovers the importance of her skin color after she’s officially reclassified as black and is expelled from her school. Her parents then fight a judicial battle to have their [...]
by Andre Soares | October 28, 2009
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Tags: Alice Krige, Anthony Fabian, Los Angeles Screenings, New York Screenings, Racism, Sam Neill, Skin, Sophie Okonedo
HOTEL RWANDA: Notes
According to a Reuters report, Rwanda’s current Tutsi president Paul Kagame, who led the country’s counter takeover to end the genocide, accused Hotel Rwanda (above) of depicting a "falsehood," adding, "Some of the things actually attributed to this person [Paul Rusesabagina, played by Don Cheadle, right, with Sophie Okonedo] are not true. Even those that are true do not merit the level of highlight."
A recent French official report, extracts of which were published in Le Monde, blamed Kagame for the downing of President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane in 1994. That event was the spark that led to the murder orgy that left between 800,000 and one million Rwandans, mostly Tutsis, dead. The Rwanda government, now in the hands of the [...]
by Andre Soares | November 21, 2004
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Tags: Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina, Politics, Rwanda, Sophie Okonedo
HOTEL RWANDA – Don Cheadle
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Direction: Terry George
Screenplay: Keir Pearson and Terry George
Cast: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Desmond Dube, Neil McCarthy, Jean Reno
In the second quarter of 1994, while much of the world was gearing up to the World Cup to be held in Los Angeles, one of history’s deadliest wholesale slaughters of human beings was taking place in Central Africa. Following the death of Rwanda’s President Juvenal Habyarimana, an ethnic Hutu whose plane was shot down above the Kigali airport on April 6, 1994, the Hutu powers-that-be decided it was time to eliminate the Tutsi minority who were blamed for the crash. What followed in the next three months was an orgy of hackings and shootings throughout [...]
by Andre Soares | November 20, 2004
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Tags: African Cinema, Don Cheadle, Film Reviews, Hotel Rwanda, Keir Pearson, Oscar 2004, Oscar Movies, Paul Rusesabagina, Political Movies, Sophie Okonedo, Terry George, Three-Star Movies, Three-Star Oscar Nominees
