By request, director Ian Gabriel’s hard-hitting film Four Corners will have its US premiere at the Seattle Film Festival as part of the event’s mission to “discover extraordinary films from around the world’.
Selected as the official South African submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, Four Corners has also been invited to screen in competition at Giffoni, the largest children’s film festival in the world near Naples in South Italy.
Although the movie’s Cape Flats subject matter was regarded as very hard-hitting by the festival’s selection panel, the film was praised for its “strong and convincing youth ensemble cast’.
The cast is led by 13-year-old Jezriel Skei, who plays the lead role in Four Corners. He is supported by various other youth actors including Israel Lever who was only seven when the film was shot.
The young cast members were chosen from widespread street castings at chess clubs, schools and community centres across the Cape Flats and from traditional castings in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Discussions are under way for the movie to play at festivals in Cannes, Montreal, Sidney and Rio.
Four Corners is screening nationwide in South Africa through Indigenous Film Distribution.
