Mystical and modern

By Kevin Crust

Feb. 9, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

THE 14th annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival kicks off tonight with the Academy Award-nominated South African film “Tsotsi.” Gavin Hood’s exhilarating adaptation of the Athol Fugard novel about the transformation of a violent young man, set in the grim townships of Johannesburg, will be shown at the Directors Guild. The festival will continue at the Magic Johnson Theatres through Feb. 20 and include more than 100 films from all over the world presenting stories of people of African descent. There also will be an art fair and more. (See accompanying story.)

Two films from Burkina Faso take very different tones in their presentation of village life and the interplay of tradition and modernity. Writer-director S. Pierre Yameogo critiques the dangers of patriarchal oppression and the manipulation of superstition in the drama “Delwende: Get Up and Walk.” While a series of mysterious deaths claims the lives of a number of children in her village, a 16-year-old named Pougbila (Claire Ilboudo) refuses to name the man who raped her and is sent by her father, Diarrha (Celestin Zongo), to live with the family of her fiance in a neighboring community. Next, a ritual involving a dead hen declares Pougbila’s mother, Napoko (Blandine Yameogo), to be a witch and thus responsible for the deaths of the children.

Napoko is driven from the village, and even her extended family rejects her, forcing her to travel by foot to a nearby city where shabby refugee centers exist for women shunned as witches. When the bold and determined Pougbila learns of her mother’s fate, she embarks on a mission to stand up to the men in the village and reveal the truth. A powerful feminist fable.

Respect and experience triumph over bureaucracy in the amusing tale “Tasuma, the Fighter,” anchored by a subtly commanding performance by Mamadou Zerbo as Sogo, a proud army veteran struggling to claim his military pension from the French government. Directed by Daniel Kollo Sanou, the film follows Sogo’s repeated trips by bicycle to Bobo-Dioulasso to retrieve his money.

On the first visit to the city, Sogo -- full of confidence and wearing his uniform from his 10 years of service four decades earlier -- purchases a grain mill on credit for the village. When his pension money fails to arrive, Sogo ends up in hot water with the vendor, and the dispute drives him to take desperate measures to settle matters. A charming tribute to a generation of soldiers who fought in wars in far-off lands but with little appreciation, the film’s greatest pleasures lie in the small interchanges between Sogo, who is quite progressive in his views, and his fellow villagers.

The manner in which “On the Verge of a Fever” opens leads one to think it may be an action-drama detailing the corruption of youth in the vein of “City of God.” However, despite its setting in Haiti immediately after the death of dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, the film takes a more mellow path as it follows a quiet 15-year-old named Fanfan (Lansana Kourouma) as he passes from innocence to experience over the course of a weekend.

Fanfan is a good boy who does his homework under the watchful eye of his mother. Goaded into a dangerous situation by his more worldly friend Gege, Fanfan thinks that the Tontons Macoutes, Duvalier’s vicious henchmen, are hunting for him. He takes refuge in a house inhabited by four beautiful party girls -- including the particularly alluring Miki (Koumba Ball) -- and the poetry of Haitian surrealist Clement Magloire-Saint-Aude. The film, directed by John L’Ecuyer and written by Dany Laferriere from his novel “On the Verge,” finds a certain sweetness in the shadow of atrocities.

Charismatic Brazilian actor Lazaro Ramos (“Madame Sata”) headlines “Cafundo,” a spiritual tale of serpents and saints directed by Paulo Betti and Clovis Bueno. Ramos plays Joao de Camargo, a freed slave who learns to listen to the voices in his head and becomes the leader of a church combining Christianity and African mysticism. Based on a mixture of fact and folklore, the film vividly traces nearly a century in Brazil’s post-colonial history.

In “All About Darfur,” filmmaker Taghreed Elsanhouri explores the troubled region of Sudan from the inside out. Born in Sudan but educated in Britain, Elsanhouri has made an extremely personal documentary as she interviews her relatives, government officials, academics and people on the streets. The complex cultural divides that plague the area are discussed with intelligence and passion, putting the long-term conflicts into a contemporary context as well as providing some historical background, especially in a scene in which Elsanhouri witnesses Sudanese children learning the same lessons she did about the country’s formation.

Straight from Utah

Tonight, the American Cinematheque begins the Best of Slamdance, its annual importation of award winners from Park City, Utah, less than two weeks after the festival’s end.

In the feature documentary “The Empire in Africa,” Philippe Diaz delivers a withering analysis of international culpability during Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war. The film alleges that Western governments, corporations and global organizations such as the United Nations are largely responsible for the protracted fighting and resulting humanitarian disaster. Diaz’s firsthand footage of the carnage and implications of collusion and exploitation are deeply disturbing.

The unique house depicted in Lila Place’s documentary short “Under the Roller Coaster” will probably be familiar even if you’ve never been to Coney Island. The oddly located abode, which sat for years beneath the Thunderbolt coaster at the famous Brooklyn amusement park, served as the fictional childhood home of Alvy Singer in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.” It was also the real-life home of Mae Timpano, a Coney Island waitress whose recollections inform this reverently nostalgic film. Place was inspired to make the film after hearing that the Thunderbolt was to be demolished in 2000.

Slamdance’s narrative winners screen Feb. 16.

It’s in the stars

UCLA’s Celebration of Iranian Cinema ends Saturday with Reza Mirkarimi’s astute drama “So Close, So Far.” Masoud Rayegani is marvelous as Mahmoud, a middle-aged Tehran neurologist who has sadly allowed his career and self-interest to create a divide between him and his 18-year-old son, Saman, a budding astronomer.

The film opens on New Year’s Eve, which is also Saman’s birthday, and Mahmoud inadvertently receives a set of X-rays that reveal his son has an inoperable brain tumor. The next day, Mahmoud sets out into the desert where Saman and some friends have gone for an astronomy competition. The thoroughly modern Mahmoud finds his lack of faith tested in the ancient world of the sandy wilderness as he desperately tries to connect with Saman. Director Mirkarimi and co-writer Mohammad-Reza Gohari have created a profoundly moving story of a man cast adrift by his own actions.

Screenings

Pan African Film & Arts Festival

* “Tsotsi”: 7:30 tonight

Where: Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., L.A.

* “All About Darfur”: 5:35 p.m. Friday

* “Delwende: Get Up and Walk”: 6:20 p.m. Friday, 6:15 p.m. Saturday

* “Tasuma, the Fighter”: 1:50 p.m. Sunday, 1:30 p.m. Feb. 20

* “On the Verge of a Fever”: 4:10 p.m. Sunday, 9:05 p.m. Tuesday

* “Cafundo”: 7:50 p.m. Wednesday, 1:15 p.m. Jan. 20

Where: Magic Johnson Theatres, 3650 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., L.A.

Info: www.paff.org

Best of Slamdance