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First Look: In My Country
Release Date: March 11, 2005
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: John Boorman
Producer: John Boorman, Robert Chartoff, Kieran Corrigan,
Lynn Hendee, & Mike Medavoy
Screenwriter: Antjie Krog & Ann Peacock
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Juliette Binoche, Brendan Gleeson,
Lionel Newton, Menzi Ngubane
Synopsis:
The project is based on the book "Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow
and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa," by Antjie
Krog this sees Langston Whitfield (Jackson) a Washington Post journalist.
His editor provocatively sends him to South Africa to cover the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission hearings, in which the perpetrators of murder
and torture on both sides during the Apartheid era are invited to come
forward and confront their victims. By telling the unvarnished truth and
expressing contrition, they may be granted amnesty. Can the deep wounds
of Apartheid be healed through reconciliation? Langston is deeply sceptical.
He tracks down Col. De Jager, the most notorious torturer in the SA Police
and tries to penetrate the mind of a monster, an experience that obliges
him to confront his own demons. Anna Malan (Binoche), is an Afrikaans
poet who is covering the hearings for radio. As a white South African
she is shattered by the accounts of the cruelty and depravity committed
by her fellow countrymen. Anna and Langston must both question their sense
of identity. Where do they each belong? How responsible are they for what
is done in the name of their respective countries? The moving testimony
of the victims affects them deeply. In different ways they are both estranged
from their families, and their shared experience draws them ever closer
to each other. It is a story charting the unfathomable depths of human
cruelty and the redeeming power of forgiveness and love.
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