A Very Powerful Film - Yesterday

She was named Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo) because her father said yesterday was definitely good and the future is unknown.

Darrell James Roodt directs Yesterday, an Oscar "Best Foreign Language" nominated film unfolding an amazing story of a young contemporary rural African family. Yesterday is the first Zulu language feature film to be released internationally and with this caliber of filmmaking it is certainly not the last. All of the production elements are superbly blended into a near perfect and epic movie. The acting, led by Ms. Khumalo, is verite, easy and will settle you in immediately for this cinematic journey along with her daughter, Beauty (Lihle Mvelase), coal mining husband Kenneth (Kenneth Khambula) and the new school teacher (Harriet Lenabe) she befriends.

The cinematography, brilliantly executed by Michael Brierley, is so vivid and lush and pushes the story of this African village leaving one longing to dismiss all Western amenities in favor of this real beauty. As a filmmaker, one of the true test of a great film is: Can you turn the volume off and still be entertained? Yesterday not only passes this test overwhelmingly, I also understood the conversations without reading the subtitles.

Yesterday is the type of movie more people need to see. It successfully captures life, history, culture and time in 90 minutes. We're all going to live a lot longer than ninety minutes, thus Yesterday is a wise investment into you future.

Madonna's Directorial Debut Lands a Distributor

W.E., the feature film directorial debut from multi-hyphenate Madonna has been acquired by The Weinstein Company (TWC) for U.S. distribution. A romantic drama co-written by Madonna and Alek Keshishian, W.E. was produced by Madonna and Kris Thykier and executive produced by Scott Franklin (Black Swan).

Starring Abbie Cornish (Limitless) and Oscar Isaac (Drive), W.E. spans six decades beginning in 1998 with the Sothesby auction of the late Duke and Duchess of Windsor's estate as a device to flash back and forth between pre World War II England and contemporary New York City.

W.E. is a contemporary love story juxtaposed that of King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson. In Interview magazine, Madonna said, "W.E. was fantastic and complicated. It is really about a girl who has this obsession and is going to the auctions." Coming soon.

As everything with Madonna, she reduces the potential sublime to accessibly interesting and pushes only the buttons to get the results she desires.