(James
Phillips at home in 1994. Pic by Ruvan Boschoff)
Durban filmmaker Michael Cross' award-winning
documentary film, The Fun's Not Over -
The James Phillips Story will have its local premiere at the Durban
International Film Festival on July 21, 2018, at Musgrave Centre at 20h00.
The film, which recently won the Audience
Award when it premiered at this year’s 20th Encounters South African
International Documentary Film Festival, tells the story of the life and
untimely death of James Phillips who died aged 36 in July, 1995.
He was a composer, musician, bandleader and
the voice and conscience of a generation of white South Africans. Cross' film
examines his extraordinary journey and his multiple musical incarnations.
Phillips' Afrikaans alter ego Bernoldus
Niemand’s 1983 single, Hou My Vas
Korporaal (“Hold Me Tightly, Corporal”) became an anthem of the End Conscription
Campaign and spawned “alternative” Afrikaans rock music and the Voëlvry
movement.
In 1985, with his beloved Cherry Faced
Lurchers, he recorded the gut-wrenching Shot
Down that addressed both white privilege and the violence of the apartheid
state.
James Phillips’ legacy is that of one of South
Africa’s most aware, articulate and passionate artists. He was a genius, a
satirist, a poet and probably one of the most accomplished songwriters that
South Africa has ever produced.
The
Fun’s Not Over tells James’ story in his own words
and through the voices of journalists like Max du Preez, satirists Zapiro and
Pieter Dirk Uys, his musical collaborators and label-mates like Koos Kombuis
and Vusi Mahlasela, contemporary artists like Jack Parow and his friends and
family.
The
Fun's Not Over - The James Phillips Story will be
on screens, in competition, for Best South African Documentary Feature at the
39th Durban International Film Festival on July 21, 2018, at Musgrave 3 at 20h00
and July 25, 2018, at Musgrave 3 at 18h00.
For information on DIFF go to
www.durbanfilmfest.co.za or follow The
Fun’s Not Over and DIFF on social media.
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