South Africa • d: Embeth Davidtz • R • 1h 38m
Bobo, a dreamy eight-year-old girl (played by the magnificent Lexi Venter), narrates her adventures, fears and fantasies as she roams around her family’s impoverished farm in Rhodesia, a kind of modern-day Huck Finn. But meanwhile, an armed struggle between whites and blacks in Rhodesia intensifies, as, after generations of apartheid, the indigenous community rises up to eject the colonizing forces. Bobo, who relies entirely on the nurturing care and teaching of the African workers Sarah (Zikhona Bali) and Jakob (Shilubana Fumani), is unbothered by racist cliches she learned from her family and that she deploys herself, perhaps because she’s busy managing her charismatic but dangerously unstable mother, played by Embeth Davidtz, who also directs and adapted the screenplay from Alexandra Fuller’s acclaimed memoir. With the aid of Willie Nel’s fluid cinematography, Davidtz’s poignant, sensuous film tells a tale of painful losses, political upheaval and the irrepressible, wild joys of childhood.
About the Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival has been, for the last 50 years, a celebration of the art of film: honoring the great masters of the cinema, discovering the rare and unknown, bringing new works by the world’s greatest directors and the latest in American independent film to a small mountain town in Colorado. The New York Times called Telluride “the smallest, most original, and most stimulating of the major festivals,” while Entertainment Tonight simply said it was “the world’s best festival.”
About Telluride By The Sea
The Music Hall and the Telluride Film Festival collaborate on an exclusive presentation of six new features, brought directly from their Colorado debuts. This unique and intimate Portsmouth event treats audience members from across the Northeast to an exclusive peek into the Telluride experience—packing one September weekend in Portsmouth with the latest international cinema, private parties, great music, delicious food, and inspired conversations with other cinephiles of all ages, tastes, and backgrounds.
Schedule
Fri., 9/13 • 7pm • Conclave
Sat., 9/14 • 1pm • Memoir of a Snail
Sat., 9/14 • 3:30pm • Nickel Boys
Sat., 9/14 • 7:30pm • Saturday Night
Sun., 9/15 • 12pm • The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Sun., 9/15 • 4pm • Will & Harper
Sun., 9/15 • 7:30pm • Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
