The Fabulous Picture Show

Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema

One young criminal’s rise to a powerful crime entrepreneur before and after the fall of apartheid.

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Amanda Palmer and South African director Ralph Ziman

With this gritty new crime drama, South Africa’s Ralph Ziman profiles the rise and fall of Lucky Kunane, a fictional Johannesburg crime lord known as the Hoodlum of Hillbrow.

It is a film very much in the Scarface vein, but with a post-apartheid twist, and an anti-hero with a Robin Hood veneer.

Ziman talks to Amanda Palmer, Al Jazeera’s head of entertainment, and the FPS audience, about meeting the real-life inspiration for Lucky Kunane, and why he had to move back to South Africa in the early ’90s to experience first-hand the fall of apartheid.

The Illusionist

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The Illusionist is animator Sylvain Chomet’s homage to the light and magic of Edinburgh

Computer graphics and 3-D technology have pretty much killed off traditional animation. Or have they? Apparently, France’s Sylvain Chomet did not get that memo. 

The director of the much-loved Triplets of Belleville refuses to abandon old-fashioned hand-drawn animation, and his latest, The Illusionist, is an absolutely stunning argument for his two-dimensional world view.

The Illusionist, about a gentle, aging musical-hall entertainer befuddled by the 1950s world of television and rock & roll and “reverse adopted” by a young girl entranced by his magic, is based on a script by the late French comedy master Jacques Tati. 

Chomet transferred the story from Prague to Edinburgh after falling in love with the Scottish capital and opening an animation studio in the city. 

Chomet speaks to FPS about the beauty of Edinburgh and his adherence to the old ways.

Submarino

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Submarino is a portrait of two siblings and their dysfunctional, tragedy-marbled lives

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg will forever be remembered as the man who made Festen (The Celebration), the first film made according to the rigid Dogme 95 principles of stripped-down, “honest” filmmaking.

Festen was not only an exemplar of the Dogme philosophy, but was also one of the most admired films of the late ’90s.

In the ensuing decade, Vinterberg has achieved mixed results, including a stint in America working with proper international movie stars. But Festen fans have never given up hope of another masterpiece. 

With his latest feature, Submarino, Vinterberg may not have scaled those heights again, but he has created a visceral and extremely moving portrait of desperate people living on the margins of society. He talks to FPS about Submarino, and answers the question: Is Dogme dead?

The Kids Are All Right

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The Kids Are All Right has been reviewed as a smart, warm statement on family values

You might not think a quirky comedy about a long-married lesbian couple (played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) with two children who, in their teens, suddenly decide to connect with their biological father would strike a chord with mainstream American filmgoers, but The Kids Are All Right has done just that.

Amanda Palmer speaks to the film’s director, Lisa Cholodenko, about how she managed to pretty much get everything right both creatively and politically.

This episode of The Fabulous Picture Show can be seen from Thursday, August 5, 2010, at the following times GMT: Thursday: 0600; Friday: 0030 and 0830; Saturday: 1130 and 2330; Sunday: 0630 and 2130; Monday: 1430; Tuesday: 0530, 1230 and 1930; Wednesday: 0300; Thursday: 0030.