Word: minghella
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...problem in bringing Precious to film was certainly not a lack of A-list interest. Director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) and producer Sydney Pollack, both Oscar winners, optioned The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in January 2001. Minghella co-wrote the screenplay with Oscar nominee Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill). And Hollywood heavy hitter Harvey Weinstein signed on as the distributor...
...project was clearly a challenge. For one thing, Minghella would have to confront the question that dogs any filmmaker on the continent: What is the real Africa? Is it the sunsets and savannahs of Out of Africa (which won Pollack his director's Oscar)? Is it the chaos and savagery of Hotel Rwanda, Last King of Scotland and Blood Diamond? Or is it the white man's shame of Cry Freedom and The Constant Gardener? Minghella knew that No. 1 Ladies' demanded a fresh approach...
...their eyes, but as a proud, tranquil and hopeful place, where people lead full, ordinary lives and savor redbush tea amid rising prosperity. Often they manage all this without ever meeting a white man. "The books don't ask, 'What's wrong with Africa? What can we fix?'" says Minghella. "They're about what we can learn from Africa, not what we can teach...
...center of this other Africa is Precious, "traditionally built," beautiful, independent and wise - the incarnation of a self-assured continent. But Minghella couldn't find her. "Over eight months, I went three times around a lap of England, the U.S. and Africa looking for an actor to play Precious," he says. "We workshopped it with eight or nine people, some very big stars. I basically gave up." Finally, while trawling YouTube two months before shooting was due to start, Minghella came across a poetry performance by Grammy Award?winning R&B singer Jill Scott, and "saw something...
Precious Hope In the real Botswana, Minghella already had a good approximation of McCall Smith's red-dust Eden. This country of 1.8 million is one of Africa's success stories. Since independence in 1966, it has maintained a robust growth rate, and per-capita gdp reached a comparatively healthy $11,000 in 2006. Botswana's diamond wealth has fomented no coups or conflict, and the last assassination was in the 1960s when a tribal chief's brother shot his older sibling. Population growth is under control, and the country's schools, and its green tourism in the Okavango Delta...