Oscars here we come!
The Namibia International Feature Film Awards Selection Committee has selected Under the Hanging Tree” as its first-ever submission to the Academy Awards International Feature Film Award category.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on 10 March at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between 1 December 2022, and 31 October 2023. A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to be announced on December 21, with the final five nominees announced on 23 January.
Under the Hanging Tee” is set in contemporary Namibia and is a supernatural noir about a tough police officer (Girley Jazama) from the city assigned to a gruesome case in a small desert town. Her discipline and by-the-book investigative methodology prove ineffective in solving a series of livestock theft cases scattered across a German farmer’s property. The intrigue intensifies when the farmer Gustav Fischer is found hung on an ancient Omumborombonga tree, and his wife Eva remains impassive, smiling menacingly at the sacrificial offerings riddling her home.
Producer Katjavivi noted that in Herero creation mythology the Omumborombonga tree gave birth to the first human beings. It is also the same tree that was used to hang Herero by German soldiers during the colonial era in Namibia. The tree is therefore a symbol of both creation and death that has remained entrenched in not just the physical landscape and everydayness of modern Namibian life but in the trauma-laden consciousness of our contemporary population as well.” The film offers these dualities as being normal in relation to Herero mysticism and tradition.
“Under the Hanging Tree” initially premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in January before it ran in cinemas in September at Ster Kinekor cinemas in Windhoek and was the closing night film at the Namibia Film Commission’s Film Week 2023.
Other screenings include the Silicon Valley African Film Festival, San Jose, USA; Lima Alterna Film Festival, Lima, Peru; Mostra de S ão Paulo Film Festival, Sã o Paulo, Brazil; Conjunctions of Archives and Public Spheres: Embodied Memories and Multi-Media Archive in and from Africa Conference, Basel, Switzerland; and the Kommunales Kino, Freiburg.Germany. Perivi Katjavivi will travel to Lagos the second week of November, where the film is screening in competition at The Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) in Nigeria.
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“Under the Hanging Tree” was funded entirely by the Namibia Film Commission and stars Girley Jazama, Dawie Engelbrecht, Roya Diehl, and David Ndjavera. It was written, directed & produced by Perivi John Katjavivi for Old Location Films.
Perivi Katjivivi (Photograpraph by Namafu Amutse)
