THE OBENSON REPORT

With the New Year in motion, I thought it would be a good idea to list those few films that I'll probably pay to see as the year progresses. Here's the first:

Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation - Charles Burnett’s next film, the writer/director of Killer of Sheep, a film I love and have talked about several times on my podcast. Namibia will be the opening night film at the Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles next month, so I certainly encourage anyone in the L.A. area to be there opening night to see the film, and possibly return to share their thoughts on it. As far as I know, it doesn’t have a distributor yet, which certainly doesn’t surprise me. But I hope that someone, somewhere will give the epic film the theatrical release that it apparently deserves. It doesn't have the proverbial "big name celebrity stars" in it (I think Danny Glover is the biggest name starring, and given his recent relations with Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, he might actually prove to be more of a risk than a reward for the film); but it’s a Charles Burnett film, and hopefully that will be enough to generate some interest from distributors. Not that his name alone will sell the film, but I think his name does carry some weight, and he's well respected amongst his colleagues.

The film tells the story of Sam Nujoma, the first president of Namibia, from his political awakening, to his part in the country’s fight for freedom from occupation by South Africa. The film covers 60 years of history and was financed entirely by the Namibian government. Go to http://www.namibiathemovie.com/ for more info on the film – not a lot, but there’s enough there to whet your appetite.

Here's the only trailer that I believe exists for the film...