Mon, Feb 09
Fig Trees (Page 2)
deutsch>>FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell from Toronto and Zackie Achmat from Capetown and their struggle for access to treatment drugs. In 1999, Zackie Achmat went on a treatment strike, refusing to take his pills until they were made widely available to all South Africans. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, set to music, and replayed as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the story of their struggles against the government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein writes a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to the Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and resumes taking his pills, Gertrude realises that there is no longer any tragedy, and thus, no more opera.
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by John Greyson / Kanada
HDCAM / 104 min / Englisch/Ohne ST
with Van Abrahams, David Wall, Alexander Chapman, Denise Williams, Ezra Perlman, Justin Bacchus, Ashton Williams
Prod: Greyzone Ltd.
Screenings at the festival
09.02.09 CinemaxX 7 20:00
10.02.09 CineStar 3 22:45
11.02.09 CineStar 3 17:45
15.02.09 CineStar 3 20:15
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