Durban filmmaker Michael Cross’ award-winning documentary film, The Fun’s Not Over – The James Phillips Story will have its local premiere at the Durban International Film Festival on Saturday 21 July 2018 at Musgrave Centre at 20h00.
The film, which recently won the Audience Award when it premiered at this years 20th Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival, tells the story of the life and untimely death of James Phillips who died aged 36 in July 1995.
He was a composer, musician, bandleader and the voice and conscience of a generation of white South Africans. Cross’ film examines his extraordinary journey and his multiple musical incarnations.
Phillips’ Afrikaans alter ego Bernoldus Niemand’s 1983 single, Hou My Vas Korporaal (Hold Me Tightly, Corporal) became an anthem of the End Conscription Campaign and spawned “alternative” Afrikaans rock music and the Voëlvry movement.
In 1985, with his beloved Cherry Faced Lurchers, he recorded the gut-wrenching Shot Down that addressed both white privilege and the violence of the apartheid state.
“James Phillips’ legacy is that of one of this country’s most aware, articulate and passionate artists. He was a genius, a satirist, a poet and probably one of the most accomplished songwriters that South Africa has ever produced,” read the statement.
The Fun’s Not Over tells Phillips’ story in his own words and through the voices of journalists like Max du Preez, satirists Zapiro and Pieter Dirk Uys, his musical collaborators and label-mates like Koos Kombuis and Vusi Mahlasela, contemporary artists like Jack Parow and his friends and family.
The Fun’s Not Over – The James Phillips Story will be in competition for the Best South African Documentary Feature at the 39th Durban International Film Festival on Saturday 21 July 2018 at Musgrave 3 at 20h00 and Wednesday 25 July 2018 at Musgrave 3 at 18h00.
For more information visit the DIFF website or follow The Fun’s Not Over and DIFF on social media.
