Screenwriter Dennis Foon, director Oliver Schmitz and author Allan Stratton from Life, Above All.Matt Carr/Getty Images
Life, Above All, a stellar German-South African production based on a Canadian novel (Allan Stratton's Chanda's Secret) and co-scripted by a Vancouverite (Dennis Foon), has been a hit at TIFF just as it was in May at Cannes. But don't expect to see the movie at your neighbourhood Bijou any time soon.This is because Life, Above All is waiting . . . waiting for Oscar.
A couple of days ago it was announced the film, about a 12-year-old girl's efforts to hold her family together in the face of AIDS and community persecution, would be South Africa's official entry for best foreign film at the 2010-11 Academy Awards. (All the characters speak Northern Sotho; their dialogue is subtitled in English.)
Vying to be among the five short-listed films is always tricky, since the list is usually culled from dozens of entries.
However, so confident are Life, Above All's U.S., Canadian and South African distributors that their movie will be among the finalists when noms are named in late January that they're holding off the movie's commercial release until late February.
"If we released it now, it would be a word-of-mouth thing which will escalate maybe slower than if there's the Oscar nomination," director Oliver Schmitz (pictured above between Foon on the left and Stratton) explained in an interview. "The more people who go to see the film is the most important thing."