The Republic of South Africa has a special place in my heart. It's a country that I've visited nine times. It's where my mother was born and spent the first 34 years of her life. It's where many members of my family live to this day. And it's where my grandfather, a white civil rights attorney, died under mysterious circumstances while defending a black man during the era of Apartheid.
For most people, though, South Africa is merely the source of fleeting images from the past two decades: the release of political prisoner Nelson Mandela, who had spent the preceding 27 years in jail, in 1990; the fall of Apartheid, the system of government-imposed racial segregation that had reigned for 46 years, in 1991; the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, his partner in ending Apartheid and the last white South African president.
In 1993, there were the seemingly endless lines of people patiently waiting to participate in the nation's first free and fair elections, for which 86% of the nation turned out over the course of three days, in 1994; and the subsequent inauguration of Mandela, with political opponents by his side, as the president of a new "rainbow nation."
A lot has happened in South Africa over the years since, but most people tuned out long ago. I expect, however, that they'll be tuning back in very soon. Why? Largely because South Africa will be hosting the 2010 World Cup next summer, but also for another reason: over the next few months, South Africa will present a compelling argument that it is a rising superpower in the world of film.
Indeed, no fewer than five of this year's most-talked-about fall films -- all the subject of awards chatter, to varying degrees -- have come out of South Africa:
-- Neill Blomkamp's "District 9," a science-fiction allegory of Apartheid starring Sharlto Copley;
-- Steve Jacobs's "Disgrace," an adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's Nobel Prize-winning novel, starring John Malkovich and newcomer Jessica Haines;
-- Anthony Fabian's "Skin," the true story of Sandra Laing, a black girl born to white parents, which stars Sophie Okonedo and Sam Neill;
-- Pete Travis's "Endgame," a thriller about covert negotiations that helped to end Apartheid, featuring William Hurt and Chiwetel Ejiofor;
-- and Clint Eastwood's "Invictus," which chronicles the unlikely bond that developed during the runup to the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa between its black president and white rugby team captain -- played by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon -- which helped to unite the nation.
A few sporadic films from and/or about South Africa have been released in the past. Notable examples include:
-- Richard Attenborough's "Cry Freedom" (1987), an adaptation of a book about an unlikely bond between a white South African newspaper editor (Kevin Kline) and black activist Steven Biko (Denzel Washington's performance earned him his first career Oscar nomination);
-- Euzhan Palcy's "A
