'Bunny Chow' featured in free Summer Foreign Film Series June 12

South African film is second in Sedona Film Festival's four-week event

Sedona, AZ - June 7, 2008 - The Sedona International Film Festival continues its Free Summer Foreign Film Series on Thursday, June 12 with the Arizona premiere of “Bunny Chow.”

There will be two screenings of the film at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. at the Sedona Community Center, 2615 Melody Lane in West Sedona.

All tickets for the screenings are free thanks to a generous grant from the Sedona Community Foundation and venue support from the Sedona Community Center.

“Bunny Chow” from South Africa is part of the Global Lens 2008 Film Series sponsored by the Global Film Initiative.

In director John Barker’s debut feature, up-and-coming comedians Kags, Joey and Dave make clear that life in the ‘new’ Johannesburg is not just about hardship and townships. It’s also about finding humor in relationships, hanging out with friends and celebrating life on a raucous roadtrip to Oppi Koppi—South Africa’s largest music festival.

Shot in a cinema vérité style and using the street food ‘bunny chow’ as a metaphor for contemporary Johannesburg’s mix of races, cultures and attitudes, Barker’s edgy, urban comedy asks us to envision a nation through the eyes of its future, rather than the tragedy of its past.

“The film is character driven with strong contemporary dialogue,” said Barker. “I employed a dark comic palette while exploring many of the banal idiosyncrasies of daily life, the quirky entanglements of personal relations, and the over-the-top social taboos.”

The characters reveal wry, ironic and subversive stories through their relationships with each other and the characters they interact with throughout the film. Many scenarios are drawn from their own experiences and are told in an unconventional, deconstructed style, which reflects the South African society of today.

“Many of the scenarios and relationships in the film were formulated over the two years that I have worked with the comedians,” added Barker. “The film was unconventionally produced; eschewing traditional scripts in favour of detailed scene outlines from which the comics improvised. We employ a technique called ‘retro-scripting’.”

The film has three very distinct acts. The first establishes our characters relationships with each other set against a gritty urban Johannesburg. The second is a road trip where these relations are tested, and the third is the resolution set against a music festival aesthetic.

The Hollywood Reporter says "This slice-of-life picture has a stylish, youthful energy, recalling early Spike Lee.” Jeremy Lawrence from the Saturday Star calls “Bunny Chow” one of the “freshest, most original and certainly bravest South African comedies to emerge in the last decade." And Dennis Seguin of Screen Daily says the film is “a hopeful signal of change in the new South Africa."

The Global Film Initiative is a U.S.-based, 501(c)3 organization specializing in the acquisition, distribution and support of independent film from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Founded in 2002 with the mission of promoting cross-cultural understanding through cinema, each year the Initiative awards numerous grants to deserving filmmakers from around the world, and supports a touring film series entitled Global Lens.

“Bunny Chow” will be shown at the Sedona Community Center (2615 Melody Lane in West Sedona) on Thursday, June 12 at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. All tickets are free and will be available starting at 3:00 p.m. at the community center. Seats are limited. Film Sedona members can pick up or reserve their free tickets in advance at the Sedona International Film Festival office, 45 Sunset Drive, or by calling 282-1177.

For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.com.

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