Positive word of mouth from Festivals and audiences has served to provide Forgiveness with unexpected audiences.
Already on release in territories as diverse as Mexico, Australia, Italy and Malaysia, though its sales agent Fortissimo Films, Forgiveness premieres in New York at the renowned Quad Cinema in Manhattan’s West Village on 8 December. The US opening of Forgiveness coincides with the U.S. premiere of Blood Diamond starring Leonardo di Caprio, Jennifer Connelly and South African actor Arnold Vosloo on the same weekend. Co-incidentally Arnold Vosloo appears in Forgiveness in the key role of South African cop Lieutenant Coetzee. In Blood Diamond he appears as a South African of the same name, this time with the rank of Colonel.
Forgiveness is also set to play at the beginning of December in Tehran at The Tehran International Film Festival arranged jointly by Iran’s Ministry of Islamic Culture and the South African Embassy.
Cornelius Moore’s California Newsreel have partnered with International Film Circuit (IFC) to release Forgiveness.
Forgiveness won the Best African Film accolade in 2004, and recently picked up two Golden Horn awards at the South African Film and Television Awards held at the beginning of November. The film was directed by Ian Gabriel from a screenplay written by Greg Latter, and co-produced by dv8 and Giant Films.
Meanwhile the Forgiveness screenplay and Study Guide published by Oxford University Press and prescribed for South African students as an introduction to the study of film goes on sale this week. Forgiveness is also currently in consideration for inclusion in the 2007 Cinema for Peace programme.
