News

In his latest podcast/interview, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright talks to filmmaker Uga Carlini about her new true-life alien abduction documentary Beyond The Light Barrier and “3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life,” which includes:

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) The Big Blue (1988) / Betty Blue aka 37°2 Le Matin (1986) Amelie (2001) Bonus choice… Love Actually (2003)

“3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life” is about those films that made you fall in love with film. The guest selects their trio of movies and we talk for 5 minutes, against the clock. When the alarm goes off for five minutes we move on to the next film.

Powered by RedCircle...

Beyond the Light Barrier, directed by Uga Carlini, is a conglomeration of several testimonies and points of view of people around Elizabeth Klarer, a renowned meteorologist in South Africa. The film is an adaptation of the book Beyond the Light Barrier by Elizabeth which is a part of her autobiography. In the book, she explains how she meets an alien, Akon, falls in love, and gets impregnated to have a child in outer space. There are mixed testimonies of people, some declaring her story to be a hoax while others are staunch believers of the story. The film showcases the interviews with the family and friends of Elizabeth and other experts in the field. Is the story of Elizabeth Klarer true, or is it just an act to grab the attention of a wide audience to convey something greater? We are sure to find that out through further discussions.

Spoilers...

Thin characterisation and a superficial critique of wealth inequality post-apartheid keep Uga Carlini’s fiction in first gear

The colourful opening of Uga Carlini’s Angeliena suggests a giddy ride awaits: the camera follows a suitcase plastered with travel stickers moving along a conveyor belt at an airport. But such vibrant detail only points up the film’s lack of emotional substance. A parking attendant for a posh hospital in South Africa, Angeliena (Euodia Samson) dreams of travelling the world, she adorns her little shack with tourist posters from faraway lands. At work, Angeliena brings a glow to the austere parking lot, pinning red roses that she grows herself to the windscreen wipers of fancy SUVs.

Such sweet-natured actions are presumably intended to endear Angeliena to us, yet reduce her to a unidimensional worker with a heart of gold. The thinness of the characterisation is made more pronounced by the...

The woman smiling at you above should arguably not be smiling. She shouldn't even be alive. And that Alison Botha not only survived an absolutely brutal attempt on her life but has transcended it to bring a message of hope to people is a story very well worth telling, which is precisely what South African filmmaker Uga Carlini is doing.Raped. Neck slashed more than 17 times. Stabbed in the stomach over 37 times. Disembowelled. Dumped on the outskirts of a nature reserve, dead - or so they thought... One of the worst things about gender violence is the fear and shame it breeds. That is why, when the going gets really tough, we need ordinary people of extraordinary strength and courage to jolt us out...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...