A Wonder View Films/Moonlighting Films Production
An Artistic License Films Release
A Mark Bamford Film
Cape of Good Hope
Tribeca Film Festival 2004
World Premiere
Cannes International Film Festival, South Africa Market Showcase, 2004
Toronto Film Festival
People’s Choice Award, Honorable Mention
The Austin Film Festival
Jury Prize for Best Film & Audience Award for Best Feature
(The first time in the festival's history that the same film has been awarded both prizes.)
The Starz Denver Pan African Film Festival
Jury Prize for Best Feature Length Film
“Absolutely charming! Cape of Good Hope is altogether different,
filled with rich characters you care about, and a plot twist that is
totally unexpected. One of the year’s most engaging films.”
- Jeffrey Lyons, NBC
“Wonderful. . . Nthati Moshesh is riveting. . . one of the best films
at Toronto this year.”
—Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun Times
Running Time: 107 mins
Media Contacts:
New York
P & F Communications
210 East 86th Street - Suite 203
New York, NY 10028
(212) 861-2100
Lisa@PFComBerney.com
Los Angeles
Marina Bailey Film Publicity
1615 North Laurel Ave. - 201
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 650-3627
MarinaBailey@sbcglobal.net
1
For press materials and photographs go to www.capemovie.com
2
Cape of Good Hope
The Cast
Debbie Brown……………………………………………… Kate
Eriq Ebouaney……………………………………………… Jean Claude
Nthati Moshesh……………………………………………. Lindiwe
Morne Visser………………………………………………. Morne
Quanita Adams…………………………………………….. Sharifa
David Isaacs………………………………………………... Habib
Kamo Masilo………………………………………………..Thabo
Nick Boraine……………………………………………….. Stephen van Heern
Clare Marshall……………………………………………… Penny
Yule Masiteng……………………………………………… Reverend Poswa
Lillian Dube………………………………………………... Mama
Greg Viljoen………………………………………………...Bruce
3
Cape of Good Hope
The Crew
Directed by…………………………………………………. Mark Bamford
Written by………………………………………………….. Mark Bamford
Suzanne Kay
Produced by………………………………………………... Suzanne Kay
Genevieve Hofmeyr
Director of Photography…………………………………… Larry Fong
Edited by…………………………………………………… Frank Reynolds
Tanja Hagen
Music by…………………………………………………… J. B. Eckl
Production Designer………………………………………...David Barkham
Costume Designer………………………………………….. Reza Levy
Hair & Makeup…………………………………………….. Raine Edwards
Casting by …………………………………………………. Christa Schamberger
Janet Meintjies
Eyde Belasco, C.S.A.
4
Cape of Good Hope
Festivals and Awards
Tribeca Film Festival 2004
World Premiere
Cannes International Film Festival, South Africa Market Showcase, 2004
Toronto Film Festival
People’s Choice Award, Honorable Mention
The Austin Film Festival
Jury Prize for Best Film & Audience Award for Best Feature
(The first time in the festival's history that the same film has been awarded both prizes.)
The Starz Denver Pan African Film Festival
Jury Prize for Best Feature Length Film
The Mill Valley Film Festival
The Bahamas Film Festival
The Palm Springs Film Festival
The Pan African Film Festival
The Cleveland Film Festival
The Sonoma Valley Film Festival
The Starz Denver Pan African Film Festival
The Seattle Film Festival
5
Cape of Good Hope
Reviews
“Wonderful. . . among the best at Toronto this year. Cape of Good Hope [and other
South African films at the Toronto International Film Festival] express a new freedom for
South African cinema, where every single film no longer has to carry the burden of
representing the entire nation to the world. Cape of Good Hope shows interlocking Cape
Town lives not unlike those in the Los Angeles movie Grand Canyon.”
—Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
“The next good cry for lovers of Monsoon Wedding and Whale Rider!”
—Jake Brooks, The New York Observer
“A tightly interwoven character ensemble. . . charming, yet not too syrupy. . . director
Mark Bamford does a nice job showcasing the "new" post-Apartheid South Africa which,
as one might expect, is still very much a work in progress. This is an unapologetically
feel-good movie which, in the wrong hands, could have easily collapsed into a smarmy
Lifetime soap opera. Thankfully, Cape of Good Hope offers up a refreshing change of
pace in these gloomy and somber times. Full of engaging characters and offering a
glimpse inside a country that's slipped below our radar somewhat these days, Cape of
Good Hope is a heartwarming, cleansing film that's simply good for the soul.”
—Merle Bertrand, Film Threat
“Cape of Good Hope is the definition of what critics hope to discover and champion... a
gentle, often funny, film that gets humanity right.”
—Joe O'Connell, The Express-News
“The economic and racial dynamics of modern-day South Africa are complex, but [Cape
of Good Hope] manages to explore them while keeping the airy tone of a good-natured
romance. Cape never feels heavy or pedantic in making its point.”
—Marrit Ingman, The Austin Chronicle
“A masterpiece.”
— S.T. Flor, San Diego City Beat
“Crowd-pleasing, feel good exercise in love and tolerance. Comes off with flair and
humor..”
—Ronnie Scheib, Variety
6
Cape of Good Hope
Synopsis
The new South Africa is revealed in Cape of Good Hope, a colorful and vibrant
mosaic of love and hope. A profoundly optimistic film, Cape of Good Hope is, in the
words of writer-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.”
In the tradition of such rich, multi-layered films as Ang Lee’s Eat, Drink, Man,
Woman, Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, and Robert Altman and John Sayles’s
sociological slice-of-life pictures, Cape of Good Hope beautifully interweaves a number
of storylines, all revolving around a Cape Town animal rescue shelter.
The faces of Hope are: Jean Claude (Eriq Ebouaney of Raoul Peck’s awardwinning film, Lumumba), a refugee from war-torn Congo who finds himself torn between
love and the promise of asylum in the West; Lindiwe (Nthati Moshesh), a single mother
and housekeeper trying to make a life for herself and her son while finding a way out of
the township once and for all; Sharifa (Quanita Adams) and Habib (David Isaacs), a
young Muslim couple unable to have children of their own yet desperate to have a
family; Morne (Morne Visser), a recently widowed vet who wants to believe that true
love can strike twice; and Kate (Debbie Brown), the emotionally guarded founder of the
animal shelter, who seems to relate better to stray dogs than to people.
7
Cape of Good Hope is the first feature film written and directed by Mark
Bamford—award-winning director of the short film, Hero—along with his wife, cowriter and producing partner, Suzanne Kay (daughter of show business legend Diahann
Carroll). Themselves recent transplants to South Africa, the couple found inspiration for
Cape of Good Hope through their experiences working as volunteers with children and
refugees.
Filmed entirely on location in the Cape Town coastal community of Hout Bay,
and cast solely with African actors, Cape of Good Hope substitutes a hard-won, deeply
felt sense of humanism for the clichés and political bombast audiences are familiar with
from many films set in Africa.
###
8
Cape of Good Hope
About the Production
“In many ways we are breaking new ground by doing this kind of movie in
Africa,” says writer-director Mark Bamford of Cape of Good Hope, his feature film
debut. “Most of the recent films out of South Africa have been about its past – and it was
important that they were made – but we feel that now is the time for a film that looks at
the present – and towards the future. We didn’t want to make a big epic political film.
This is a film about people just trying to live, not a film about black and white, not a film
about politics, but about human beings.” An overwhelmingly optimistic story, Cape of
Good Hope’s timing—principal photography coincided with the tenth anniversary of the
end of Apartheid—couldn’t be more apt.
The seven-week, 41-day shoot was done on-location mostly in and around the
small coastal community of Hout Bay, Cape Town, a neighborhood known for its racial
and economic diversity. “In many senses Cape of Good Hope is a little film,” says
Bamford, noting that the cast and crew all worked for deferred payment because
everyone believed so strongly in the project. “But there are 48 speaking roles, 50
locations, and everything was filmed on location—the animal shelter, the planetarium,
the dance studio, the shantytown, the fish n’ chips shop, the restaurant, the drive-in.”
Incredibly, all of these locations were within just 15 minutes of the filmmakers’ home.
9
A Transplanted Couple Captures A Country In Transition
The story of how Mark Bamford and Suzanne Kay decided to make Cape Town
their home—and make their feature film debut with a story of South African
revitalization and hopefulness—is a fascinating one.
The couple’s 1999 award-winning short film, Hero, the story of an American
soldier gone AWOL behind enemy lines during WWII, garnered Bamford Atom Films’s
“Director to Watch” award in 2001. While traveling with their short film to festivals, the
intrepid couple decided to visit Cape Town. Immediately enamored with a place
Bamford calls “one of the most beautiful cities on earth,” the couple, having just had their
first child, August, decided to take a year off from living in Hollywood and work on
developing feature projects.
At first, they considered their time in Cape Town something temporary, an
extended writer’s retreat. Four-and-a-half years and a second child (Sydney) later, South
Africa has become their permanent home. During that first year, in addition to working
on scripts, the couple began meeting refugees from Congo and other African nations torn
apart by civil strife. “Cape Town is a place where the first world and the third world
collide and are right on top of each other,” says Bamford. “This isn’t a second world
country, and that’s what’s so fascinating about it.”
Together, Bamford and Kay started a project to help the refugees, most of whom
were French-speaking, to learn English. Soon after, they began a children’s enrichment
10
program in Cape Town. “That first year we were here was an incredible eye-opener, an
intensive immersion, a crash course in South African life,” says Bamford. “And I
realized that while I wasn’t particularly good at administering these projects, these people
had incredible stories and lives, and many of those characters and stories found their way
into Cape of Good Hope.” Adds Kay: “We had friends from many different
communities, wealthy whites, people from what they call a Coloured background,
Muslims, Christians, members of the black Xhosa communities, refugees, these people
became very familiar to us.”
During the initial scriptwriting phase, Cape of Good Hope began as the story of a
woman who runs an animal shelter who meets a young boy who’s good with dogs.
“Then I began thinking, maybe the boy should win the Westminster Dog Show and
things like that, but as it developed, the plot gimmicks fell away and you’re left with the
characters,” says Bamford about the organic nature of his and Kay’s writing process.
“Suddenly, rather than plot hooks, you begin realizing there are interesting people that
work in the shelter and begin asking, who are these people? What are their lives like?”
The resulting script maintains the intimate, world-cinema film of such recent
classics as Ang Lee’s Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding,
while skillfully interweaving a complex web of multiple storylines. “The challenge with
this type of film is that you have so many characters that it can be a long set-up before the
story really begins,” Bamford explains. “And with that many major characters you have
to be careful how you choose your big moments.”
11
Once the script was in good shape to show South African film industry people,
the response was overwhelmingly positive. “When we were finished with the script, we
showed it to a cross-section of South Africans,” says Bamford. “Many of them said that
they couldn’t have written a script like this, that the new South Africa is too new, too
raw, the subtleties of what’s happening here are too confusing, that an outsider’s
objectivity was needed to capture this story.”
Says Cape of Good Hope production designer David Barkham: “I think that
sometimes people can come in from the outside and have a fresh vision. Mark and
Suzanne have looked at this little microcosm of society and seen it as something that’s
very interesting and unique.” Says Clare Marshall, who portrays Penny, “Their insight
into the country has really amazed me.”
South Africa, Sans Bombast
“Big South African film productions like Cry, The Beloved Country, Sarafina,
and Country of My Skull are all almost single-mindedly focused on politics,” says
Bamford. “It’s as if you’re in India and you only make movies about Gandhi, and not
Monsoon Wedding.”
At every turn, Bamford, cast, and crew allowed the implicit humanism underlying
the film’s story to dictate. “Some people who looked at early footage suggested, ‘The
city is so beautiful, you need more scenic shots of Cape Town,” says Bamford of the
pressure filmmakers have to turn every film set in Africa into something of a travelogue.
12
“But no one would ask P.T. Anderson to include more shots of San Fernando Valley in
Magnolia.”
Somewhat rare for a first-time feature director, Bamford opted for a sense of
visual restraint. “The nature of the story required a very simple aesthetic,” says Bamford
of Cape of Good Hope’s relative lack of camera calisthenics. “In every scene we asked,
what is this moment really about rather than perform pirouettes and try to create some
visual candy.” Along those lines, Bamford relates a humorous anecdote involving Cape
of Good Hope director of photography Larry Fong. Reviewing the day’s shoot, after
some discussion Fong and Bamford made the decision to cancel a complicated aerial shot
that would have introduced the scene of Eriq and Lindiwe’s first date. “That has to be
something of a first,” jokes Bamford. “I’ve never heard of a D.P. canceling a helicopter
shot!”
Says Nthati Moshesh, who plays Lindiwe, “I loved the simplicity of the story.
Cape of Good Hope is a story about human dramas, about people seeking out a living and
I fell in love with that, because so often you read a script—especially in this country—
and the story can get so bogged down by the politics that you forget the simple things
about people.” This sentiment is seconded by actor Nick Boraine who portrays Stephen
van Heern: “It’s getting back to basic storytelling which I think we struggle with from
time to time in South Africa. We try to tell big stories, important stories, rather than
realize that everybody’s lives are important and interwoven.”
13
Bamford relates how one of the most thrilling things about doing a first feature is
the newness of every experience. “I’d never done a car shot before, or an animal trick, or
worked with a group of 13 kids, or 200 extras, or a restaurant scene with four-person
overlapping dialogue,” says Bamford. “So you learn as you go. . . I had a film teacher
who said when it comes time to make your first feature, make sure it’s something you
care about, because it’s going to be two or three years out of your life.”
Casting The Faces of Hope
“Our very first decision was to cast the film solely with South Africans,” says
Bamford. “That may seem like an obvious thing, but traditionally, most films set here
cast American and European actors playing Africans in the lead roles.”
Though South Africa is experiencing something of a boom in commercial film
production (during winters in Europe, many foreign commercial production work comes
to Cape Town, along with a good deal of straight-to-video B action movies) good film
roles for South African actors are somewhat scarce. “Even during the auditions,” says
Bamford, “you could feel the actors’ relief that they weren’t auditioning for the part of
the girl who gets killed in Shark Attack 2.” That said, there’s a tight-knit filmmaking
and acting community in South Africa, and many of the Cape of Good Hope cast
members had worked together in films or on soap operas or had trained together at acting
schools.
14
Bamford has nothing but praise for his versatile ensemble, beginning with Eriq
Ebouaney, who plays Jean Claude, a refugee from war-torn Congo. “I cast Eriq without
ever meeting him, after seeing him in Lumumba,” says Bamford. “Eriq is so incredibly
gifted. I think his is one of the best, most refreshing, and least-stereotyped portrayals of
an African character in films.”
Indeed, in one of the loveliest passages in Cape of Good Hope, Jean Claude
comes closest to articulating the message of the film, explaining to a class of young
students visiting the Planetarium that, “Love is what keeps the universe glued together.”
(At the end of that scene, when it is revealed that the brilliant and elegant Eriq is not the
Planetarium guide, but rather a volunteer janitor, the effect is devastating.)
Opposite Ebouaney is the beautiful and radiant Nthati Moshesh as Lindiwe, a
domestic worker, widow, and single mother of Thabo (played by young star-in-themaking Kamo Masilo) who attracts the attentions of both Reverend Poswa and Congolese
refugee Jean Claude. “Eriq and Nthati just had this amazing chemistry together,” says
the writer-director of the characters’ achingly tender courtship scenes. Says Moshesh:
“The fact that Jean Claude doesn’t have much in terms of material things doesn’t bother
her because this is a man who’s not afraid to open up to her in terms of her feelings and I
think she’s attracted to that.”
For the young Muslim couple, Habib and Sharifa, Bamford cast David Isaacs,
well known local comic and co-star of the hit South African television series S.O.S., and
15
stage actress Quanita Adams. “With everything going on in the world right now, I
wanted to show a Muslim couple whose most pressing concern is to conceive a child,”
explains Bamford. “They want a kid—how much more human can that be?” Says
Adams: “We’re looking at issues of xenophobia within South Africa and beyond, and
those are touchy issues. And I think that for those reasons the story is incredibly
powerful, because it manages to tackle those issues without being offensive or
judgmental or making one feel uncomfortable.”
The major acting discovery of Cape of Good Hope is Debbie Brown, a South
African stage actress making her film debut as Kate, the emotionally guarded founder of
the animal shelter that serves as the film’s central hub. “When Debbie came in for her
audition, she chose such an odd scene,” says Bamford, “the scene in which she and
Morne are trying to escape from the men’s room window to avoid having a scene with
her mother in the restaurant. I thought that was such an interesting moment to choose,
and when she launched into it, her acting was so natural that I didn’t realize that the scene
had begun.”
Says Kay: “I feel like our cast is so dead on, we’ve just gotten what we had in our
minds when we wrote the script. The characters came to life with the people who were
cast and I’m so thrilled with that.” Attests Yule Masiteng, who portrays Cape of Good
Hope’s Reverend Poswa, “It’s been a very happy set. I’ve been to many sets and each
has a different ambience. This is a very happy set.”
16
Rounding out the cast of actors is a menagerie of animals. “I’m an idiot,” jokes
Bamford. “I put kids and animals in my first movie—all I needed to do to make things
more difficult for myself was set it on the water!”
In Cape of Good Hope, Bamford expertly and subtly uses animals as a way of
commenting on the foibles of his major characters, their ability and inability to relate to
their friends and family and lovers. For example, in one crucial scene in which Kate is
on the phone with her married lover, Bamford and editor Frank Reynolds continually cut
away to her pet dog to great comedic effect. “That was a bit of editing trickery to mask a
plot-point that’s revealed later on in the film,” says Bamford. “But the dog keeps giving
her these incredibly judgmental looks, and acts as her conscience in the scene.”
The animals in Cape of Good Hope also act as something of a lens through which
some of the political themes of the film are borne out without the movie devolving into a
political tract. (There are, for instance, dogs trained specifically to attack blacks, and
some pointed discussions in the animal shelter about the merits of pure breds versus
mongrels.)
Meanwhile, Bamford and Kay’s own dog, a pug named Simon, was left on the
cutting room floor. “He was cut from the animal shelter open house beauty pageant
scene,” says Bamford. “He still hasn’t forgiven us.”
17
Cape of Good Tunes
For Cape of Good Hope’s original score, Bamford longed for an urbancosmopolitan sound, something that would avoid the musical clichés of most films set in
Africa. “There seems to be two ways to go with music for African films,” Bamford
explains. “Either a big beautiful orchestral score, like Out Of Africa, or pounding drums
with the Zulus about to charge over the mountains.”
While J.B. Eckl had toured with War as lead guitarist at just 19-years-old, and
worked with Carlos Santana on his epochal comeback record, Supernatural, the multitalented musician-songwriter-producer had never scored a film or television show before.
“At first I told J.B. that it just wouldn’t work out on this one, that I couldn’t see
accommodating the learning curve of working with a first-time composer, given that this
was my own first feature,” explains Bamford. “But J.B. saw a rough cut of the film and
came back with some tracks that were so emotionally honest, so subtle, so simple, so
beautiful, so moving. . . It’s not Western and it’s not African, and it fit the movie
perfectly.”
###
18
Cape of Good Hope
About the Cast
DEBBIE BROWN (Kate)
Newcomer Debbie Brown earned critical acclaim and a Best Actress award for
her portrayal of Lisa Morrison in the South African production of Donald Marguiles' play
Collected Stories. She was also nominated for her work as the controlling sister in the
South African production of David Auburn's Proof. Debbie has worked extensively in
South African television. Film credits include Borderline (2002) with Gina Gershon,
Michael Biehn, and Sean Patrick Flanery. Cape of Good Hope is her first leading role in
a film.
ERIQ EBOUANEY (Jean Claude)
Paris-based Ebouaney is an accomplished stage and film actor with over 15
theatrical roles to his credit ranging from classic tragedies such as Medea to the farcical
1900. Ebouaney earned international acclaim for his powerful portrayal of assassinated
Congolese president Patrice Lumumba in Raoul Peck's feature film Lumumba. Other
film work includes the French indie hit Ma Femme est une Actrice (My Wife Is an
Actress), Le Silence dans la Forêt (The Forest), and Brian de Palma's Femme Fatale. He
has also worked with directors Cedric Klapisch, Benoit Jacquot, Jean Becker, and Claire
Denis.
Ebouaney was most recently seen in director Ridley Scott's Crusades epic,
Kingdom of Heaven, with Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, and Brendan
19
Gleeson. Ebouaney will next be seen in director Eric Valli's La Piste with Clint Dyer and
Julian Sands.
NTHATI MOSHESH (Lindiwe)
Nthati Moshesh is a television, stage and film actress and a voice-over artist. Her
film work includes leads in both The Long Run opposite Armin Mueller-Stahl for
producer Anant Singh and directed by Jean Stewart, and in Kini and Adams directed by
Idrissa Ouedrago which premiered in the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. She has recently
starred in an Israeli film entitled Nurit directed by Shahar Rozen and an American film,
Beat The Drum. Her television appearances include a leading role in the hit South
African “soap” – 7 de Laan and the female lead in The Deafening Silence based on the
true account of a policeman’s life in South Africa during the Apartheid years. She played
opposite well-known actor Adrian Lester in the popular British series Soldier Soldier.
Further TV credits include Scout’s Safari for the USA Discovery Channel and the role of
Kata in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's mini-series Human Cargo to be shown
internationally in 2004, and the Irish television miniseries Whiskey Echo, about an
international group of aid workers caught in a Sudanese war zone.
MORNE VISSER (MORNE)
Visser is best known in South Africa as the co-star of the hit television comedy
series S.O.S. and has worked extensively on the stage including his acclaimed one man
show Mickey Malan A.K.A The Great White Hope. He has numerous film credits
20
including Ultimatum, The Quarry and a recent Hallmark production of King Solomon's
Mines. Most recently, Visser was featured in the hit family film, Racing Stripes.
QUANITA ADAMS (Sharifa)
Adams is a notable television and stage actress. She recently won a Fleur Du Cap
award (The South African equivalent of the Tony Award) for Best Actress for two roles Athol Fugard's Valley Song and her one-woman show At Her Feet. Cape of Good Hope
is her debut in a feature film. Most recently, Adams appeared in director Ian Gabriel's
award-winning Forgiveness opposite Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy).
DAVID ISAACS (Habib)
Isaacs is the co-star of the hit South African television comedy series S.O.S. He
has received critical acclaim and awards for his television and stage work, including a
South African theater award for his starring role as Gamat in Joe Barber, which he also
wrote. Isaacs is also one of the featured voices in the blockbuster video game Grand
Theft Auto: San Andreas.
NICK BORAINE (Stephen Van Heern)
Boraine is one of South Africa's leading actors. His film credits include Hugh
Hudson's I Dreamed of Africa starring Kim Basinger, and Country of My Skull with
Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche and directed by John Boorman. He recently
finished playing "the bad guy" opposite Patrick Swayze for Hallmark's remake of King
Solomon's Mines. Nick has received numerous South African theater awards and
21
performed his one-man show Sic at the New York International Fringe Festival where it
received an Excellence in Performance Award.
LILLIAN DUBE (Mama)
Lillian Dube, one of the grand dames of South African cinema , currently stars in
the popular South African television series Soul City. Her film credits include Cry, The
Beloved Country with James Earl Jones, Richard Harris, and Charles S. Dutton and A
Good Man in Africa with Sean Connery and John Lithgow.
CLARE MARSHALL (Penny)
Clare Marshall is an accomplished stage, feature film and television actress. She
appeared as the leading lady in South Africa's first ever TV drama Arbell. Her film work
includes Zulu Dawn with Peter O'Toole, Sir John Mills and Burt Lancaster. Most
recenty, she appeared in director Clive Morris' crime drama, A Case of Murder (2004).
Clare was educated between India, England and what was then Rhodesia and studied
drama in the U.K. She has won numerous awards for her theatrical work.
GREG VILJOEN (Bruce)
Greg Viljoen works extensively in South Africa shooting television, feature films
and commercials. He co-wrote and starred in the cult South African sitcom Big Okes.
His feature film credits include Queens Messenger and Dead Easy.
###
22
Cape of Good Hope
About the Filmmakers
MARK BAMFORD (Writer/Director)
Born in Louisville, and raised mostly in New York, Bamford studied art and
dramatic writing in London and Paris. He graduated cum laude from New York
University (NYU) in 1989 and moved to Los Angeles where he was a freelance
screenwriter and developed projects for among others director Roland Emmerich.
Bamford wrote and directed the award-winning short film Hero which starred
Julianne Nicholson (Tully, Ally McBeal) and Alan Gelfant (Next Stop Wonderland). A
visually stunning and emotionally powerful story of an American soldier gone AWOL
behind enemy lines in World War II, Hero was premiered in numerous film festivals
around the world and won him the Atom Films “Director to Watch” Award in 2001.
Hero sold worldwide for television and aired in the U.S. on the prestigious PBS network.
For the last four-and-a-half years, Bamford has lived with wife, co-writer and
producer Suzanne Kay, and their two children in Cape Town, South Africa. Cape of
Good Hope is his first feature.
SUZANNE KAY (Writer/Producer)
Daughter of show business legend Diahann Caroll, Suzanne Kay grew up around
the entertainment business. After graduating from Columbia University in New York
23
with a Master's Degree in Journalism, Kay worked as an intern for the McNeil-Lehr News
Hour on PBS. She went on to become a news writer at CNN in Atlanta and later arts and
entertainment editor of Essence Magazine.
Comfortable both behind and in front of the camera, Kay soon found herself as
on-air co-anchor of ETV!'s first entertainment news program with co-anchors Greg
Kinnear and Julie Moran. Following that she worked as a TV scriptwriter for several Fox
TV sitcoms before beginning work as a freelance screenwriter.
In 1999 she co-wrote and produced the Award-winning short film Hero directed
by her husband and collaborator Mark Bamford. Kay is also founder of the production
company Wonder View Films.
GENEVIEVE HOFMEYR (Producer, Moonlighting Films)
Genevieve Hofmeyr is the driving force behind Moonlighting Films, which she
founded in 1997 with Philip Key. Together the team has worked on 14 feature films and
documentaries including Michael Mann’s Ali and Beyond Borders with Angelina Jolie,
and is currently in pre-production for Ask the Dust written and directed by Robert Towne
and starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek.
Hofmeyr began her career in the mid-1980s as a production manager working
with many respected South African directors, including Gray Hoymeyr, Darryl Roodt and
Katinka Heyns, and produced the film Paljas which was South Africa’s first official
selection for Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Award.
LARRY FONG (Cinematographer)
24
Larry Fong was born and raised in Los Angeles, where he lives today. He
graduated from UCLA with a degree in Linguistics, and from Art Center College of
Design in Pasadena, California, with a degree in film. Once out of school, Fong worked
as a still photographer and soon collaborated with Tarsem to shoot REM’s music video
Losing My Religion. Since that time, he has worked as a Director of Photography on
music videos for Iggy Pop, Goo Goo Dolls, Soundgarden, and many others. He has shot
commercials for clients such as Coca Cola, Taco Bell, Mastercard, Sony and Nike, and
he’s the man shooting those award-winning Jack in the Box commercials.
Fong’s credits include several episodes of Red Shoe Diaries, several pilots, and
Stan Schofield’s feature Cost of Living. For television, Fong served as Director of
Photography for the pilot and many episodes of the ABC television series, Lost. Fong is
currently shooting The Catch, an ensemble drama set in the world of bounty hunters
starring Greg Grunberg, Joanne Kelly, and Don Rickles.
DAVID BARKHAM (Production Designer)
David Barkham established himself as a prominent art director and production
designer in the South African film industry in the mid-1980's. His credits include
Sarafina with Whoopi Goldberg, Disney’s Father Hood with Patrick Swayze, and Cry,
the Beloved Country with James Earl Jones, Richard Harris and Charles S. Dutton. His
television credits include Mandela and de Klerk starring Sidney Poitier and Michael
Caine and Takalani Sesame, the South African version of Sesame Street. He lives in
Toronto with his wife and daughter.
25
FRANK REYNOLDS (Editor)
A graduate of New York University's film school as well as the American Film
Institute, Frank Reynold’s first feature as an editor was M. Night Shyamalan's Praying
With Anger (1993). He went on to edit such movies as Troma's cult film Tromeo and
Juliet (1996), Fine Line's Man of the Century (1999), and Miramax's In The Bedroom
(2001) which was a Best Picture nominee at the 2002 Academy Awards. Cape of
Good Hope is the tenth feature film he has edited.
J.B. ECKL (Music)
Multi-talented songwriter/vocalist/guitarist J.B. Eckl's musical quest has led him
from his Canadian roots to the jungles of South America, and eventually to the studios
and concert halls of America, Europe, and Asia.
First came WAR, the seminal '70s funk band whose pioneering multi-cultural
sound had inspired Eckl since childhood. After touring the world as WAR's lead
guitarist, and establishing his career as a songwriter with artists as diverse as En Vogue
and Larry Carlton, JB began an enduring association with one of his greatest musical
influences of all: Carlos Santana.
The opportunity to perform and trade licks with Carlos would have been enough,
but even co-writing and arranging the song Primavera on Santana's breakthrough 1999
hit album Supernatural would prove to be only the beginning. When the time came for
the anticipated follow-up, 2002's Shaman, Eckl co-wrote another song for Santana,
stepped up to the level of co-producer, as well as singing the lead vocal one of the songs.
26
Between the Santana albums, Eckl worked as a writer/producer on various
releases in Latin America, England and the U.S. as well as forging a unique sound as an
artist in his own right. Picking up the torch where his mentors left off, Eckl continues in
their tradition, breaking down musical barriers by combining the pop, funk and rock of
his North American roots with the rhythms of the Global South.
REZA LEVY (Costume Designer)
South African-born Reza has worked on such feauture films as Diamond Hunters,
and Kingdom in Twilight, and the television movie Mandela and de Klerk with Sidney
Poitier and Michael Caine.
RAINE EDWARDS (Key Hair and Make-up)
Based in Cape Town, Raine Edwards is a renowned hair and make up artist, who
has been working in the film industry on both commercials and feature films for the last
12 years. Her latest project was Red Dust starring Hillary Swank.
CHRISTA SCHAMBERGER (Casting)
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Christa Schamberger has been a freelance casting
director in Johannesburg, South Africa, for features and television dramas since 1987.
She has been involved in casting such international features as Racing Stripes, Red Dust
with Hillary Swank, Stander with Thomas Jane, Beyond Borders with Clive Owen and
Angelina Jolie, Ali with Will Smith, and I Dreamed of Africa starring Kim Bassinger.
27
Recently, she cast the lead boy in director Carroll Ballard’s (The Black Stallion) latest
project (as yet untitled but known as Shadow throughout principal photography).
JANET MEINTJIES (Casting)
Based in Cape Town, Janet Meintjies is one of South Africa's top casting directors
and has cast numerous local and international feature films, including Country of My
Skull directed by John Boorman and starring Samuel Jackson and Juliette Binoche,
Bronwen Hughes' Stander with Thomas Jane and Deborah Kara Unger, and Running
Free.
EYDE BELASCO (Casting)
Eyde Belasco began her career as a casting associate on films like Pearl Harbor,
One True Thing and The Astronaut's Wife. She soon moved out on her own casting such
films as Behind Enemy Lines with Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman and Daredevil with
Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and Colin Farrell. She is currently in her ninth year as the
West Coast casting director for the Sundance Institute.
###
28