1-World Festival of Foreign Films
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"Boesman and Lena"
2000
Directed by John Berry

Danny Glover and Angela Bassett star in this heart-wrenching adaptation of Athol Fugard's play about a couple's struggle to survive and not let hatred destroy them as they live a life of constant displacement and oppression under Apartheid. Through flashbacks we see the happiness they once had and how it was taken away from them. Glover "...finds every nuance of Boesman's pride and frustration as well as his deeply buried, nearly evaporated reservoir of tenderness. And Ms. Bassett stokes Lena's pain to such white heat that the screen fairly burns" (A.O. Scott, The New York Times). The last film directed by John Berry, who began his career in Hollywood (He Ran All the Way) but spent much of his career in France and elsewhere after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era. In English. South Africa.  84 minutes.