Star 2022-06-23

With just a month left until the Durban International Film Festival, organisers have announced the live screening line-up that will be showing at the Suncoast CineCentre. This year’s 10-day hybrid festival consisting of almost 200 features, documentaries, shorts and student films will be held from July 21 to 30, under the theme of “Adaptation, Survival and Sustainability”. These are some of the features worth watching live. Wind Blows In The Border – Showing on July 22 at 6pm On the violent border between Brazil and Paraguay, a war is being waged around the expansion of agribusiness. As described by director Laura Faerman, “the documentary narrates the trajectory of two women who are on opposite sides of a violent conflict over land in Brazil. Thus, the film shows two opposing and…

Singer Beyoncé surprisingly dropped her new single Break My Soul three hours before the announced release time from her forthcoming seventh solo studio album Renaissance. Also in the writing credits are Jay-Z, Adam Pigott, Freddie Ross, a.k.a Big Freedia, and the writers of Robin S’s 1993 hit Show Me Love, which is prominently sampled in the song, reports Variety. For her part, Beyoncé is on message with both her return and the disco theme of the song: The title is flipped by saying “You won’t break my soul”. It’s filled with dance floor-friendly lines like: “Motivation/I’m looking for a new foundation/ I’m on that new vibration/ I’m building my own foundation” and a repeated exhortation of “Everybody”. In an apparent slight to major streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music,…

AFTER 13 years, queen of gossip Wendy Williams has officially ended her TV run of The Wendy Williams Show. Williams, whose health took a turn for the worse, had to be sidelined from her show since July 2021. Hosts have filled in for her. TV personality and comedian Sherri Shepherd filled in during most of season 13 and hosted the grand finale last Friday, which Williams did not appear on. Despite Wendy’s absence, a montage of highlights from her 13-year run was aired for her fans and a shot of her famous purple chair, empty, was posted symbolically to Williams’ social media accounts. The caption read: “We love you for watching.” From the comments it appears Williams’ fans are not impressed by Shepherd, nor the fact that Williams was…

SOUTH Africa is experiencing an epidemic of deaths among the youth due to road crashes as more than 8 500 perished in crashes in three years, the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) said. The RTMC has issued a clarion call to the young people of South Africa to prioritise road safety as the youth engage in Youth Month festivities. This comes after the corporation revealed yesterday that a total of 8 547 young people between the ages of 21 and 34 died on South African roads in the three-year period between 2019 and 2021, according to statistics collected by the RTMC. “The worst-affected category is among those aged 30 to 34, with 3 661 of them dying because of road crashes in the three-year period,” the corporation said. The province…

Will Chief Justice and commission chairperson Judge Raymond Zondo overlook the Glencore scandal in his state capture report? Glencore International pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1,186bn (about R17,4bn) in fines and penalties for corrupt practices in dealing with foreign governments. Zondo yesterday handed over the fifth and final Judicial Commission of Inquiry report into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector, including Organs of State, to President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Union Buildings. The Presidency was expected to publish the final report shortly. Ramaphosa could not have been in the dark about the Glencore scandal – he was the chairperson of this company. Shouldn’t Ramaphosa have said something? Should Zondo have articulated the measurement of corruption in this? How does the chief justice, an honourable…

l Report ‘leaves much to be desired’ More than R1 billion later and after eight million pages of documentary evidence, 75 000 pages of transcribed oral evidence and over 800 witnesses, the final chapter of the Commission of inquiry into State Capture led by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has finally arrived. Last night, President Cyril Ramaphosa received the final Zondo Commission Report, which comes after a series of delays and extensions amid the Phala Phala Farm and the Glencore scandals directly linking the president as a person of interest in state capture. The final instalment which was supposed to reach the president last week was extended to Monday, and then subsequently moved forward to last night. This in turn has set tongues wagging, with many accusing the president and the…