Coming up tonight (Wednesday, 26 September, 2007) at
21h00:
Press release:
A Carte Blanche Special: Murder Most Foul
Four days before he was due to fly to England to appear in Hamlet in Stratford upon Avon, 27 year old South African actor Brett Goldin was brutally murdered in Cape Town, shot execution-style in the back of the head, alongside his childhood friend Richard Bloom. In the harrowing documentary, Murder Most Foul, award-winning director Jon Blair and presenter Sir Anthony Sher examine the events of that evening and put together pieces of a puzzle that reveal a much greater truth.
Murder Most Foul made its world television premiere on UK’s Channel 4 on 25 September 2007 and tonight (26 September, 2007) M-Net will bring it to South African viewers under the Carte Blanche banner.
The documentary will be introduced by Carte Blanche presenter Bongani Bingwa and will be followed by a one-on-one interview with South African-born Oscar-winner Blair in the Carte Blanche studio.
Carl Fischer, Head of M-Net’s Original Productions, believes that it is important for M-Net to screen this documentary made by Jon Blair, one of the most celebrated documentary film-makers in the world. “Jon is a South African who spent much of his life campaigning against apartheid and for a better South Africa.
"This film reflects an important perspective on violent crime in South Africa today - inspired by a horrific murder that directly affected Sir Anthony Sher. Yet it is symbolic of the terrible effect that violent crime has on too many South Africans from all walks of life - every day. Jon Blair and Sir Anthony Sher are South Africans who live abroad.
"They care deeply about the country of their birth and that the democratic miracle of 1994 is not eroded by the present culture of violence and crime. The screening of this film, in South Africa and abroad, whilst containing disturbing and negative images, will hopefully inspire all who watch it, to react positively and support every public and private initiative that could roll back the wave of crime and violence affecting so many South Africans.”
In Murder Most Foul, Sher and Blair examine the dark underbelly of crime in a young democracy. Sir Antony Sher is one of Britain's foremost actors who nearly 40 years ago embarked on the same journey from Cape Town as Goldin had planned to make.
Obsessed with Goldin's murder Sher returns to the country of his birth with director Jon Blair. Using the Goldin and Bloom murders as a starting-point, their investigation uncovers the harrowing truth that 13 years after the arrival of democracy in South Africa, the country is suffering one of the highest murder rates in the world.
In Murder Most Foul, Sher and Blair retrace the steps which lead to Goldin and Bloom’s murder, visit the Tik-riddled Cape Flats and come face-to-face with ordinary South Africans who live with violence on a daily basis.
Jon Blair is the only South African or British director to win an Oscar, two Emmy’s, a British Academy Award and a CableACE among many others.
Jon is South African-born but went into exile in England after he was drafted into the apartheid army in the 1960s. Over the years, in addition to his award-winning career as a documentary director in Britain, he has undertaken ground-breaking work in his former homeland, including The Biko Inquest, Two Dogs and Freedom and Frontline.
Actor Sir Anthony Sher interviews former gangster general Thomas Nqolobe
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