Caramel, a film named after the sugary stuff that Arab women cook and use to wax their legs is Lebanon’s official entry to 80th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Caramel has been sold in more than 40 countries which makes it the most exposed and internationally acclaimed Lebanese film till date. It opened the Paris Cinema Film Festival and won three prizes at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain. It ran for the Camera d’Or during the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and has also won various Middle Eastern awards.
Nadine Labaki’s maiden feature film as director/actor is a Steel Magnolias meets Sex and the City set in Beirut but with realism, intelligence and affection. Caramel, directed by Nadine Labaki, casts a rare gaze into the lives of five Lebanese women, of different religious backgrounds, as they struggle to deal with heartbreak, sexuality and aging between haircuts, facials and intimate conversations at the salon. Caramel makes no reference to the political problems and war-ravaged Lebanon rather deals with everyday people coming to terms with universal issues.
Goodbye Bafna is based on the memoirs of former South African president Nelson Mandela. It also released under the name The Color Of Freedom is a critically acclaimed film by Cannes award winning filmmaker Bille August which has won the Peace Prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2007 and was nominated for the Golden Bear for Best Motion Picture.
The story chronicles the unusual relation between a racist and a black man. For twenty years of his sentence on Robben Island, Mandela (Dennis Haysbert) was guarded by James Gregory (Joseph Fiennes), a typical white Afrikaner who regards blacks as sub-human. Through Mandela’s influence, Gregory starts to believe Mandela’s ideas of a free and democratic South Africa. Forced to either follow these new ideas or stay faithful to his old principles, Gregory’s life-altering journey is offset against the backdrop of South Africa’s pivotal moment in history. This inspiration docudrama symbolizing Africa’s transition from the oppressiveness of Apartheid to the freedom of multi-racial democracy, poses the question: Who is the prisoner? And who sets whom free?
Both the DVDs will be available in stores for Rs 499 and will be available in all stores across the country.
