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AFRICA WINS OVER
HOLLYWOOD
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com
[ October 12th 2001 ]
Despite
being voted 'best film location' at the Los Angeles
2001 Film Expo, Kenya has seen little success
in hosting Hollywood productions because of bureaucratic
bungling and general laxity. The films were instead
lost to aggressive location marketers in South
Africa.
South
Africa stole the limelight from Kenya for the
fourth time recently by winning a bid to host
an $85 million Hollywood production called Beyond
Borders in February next year. Ghost and the Darkness,
The Air up There, I Dreamed of Africa and Hot
Zone, with a combined budget of $230 million,
were also recent productions previously set to
shoot in Kenya.
Robert
Redford had planned to film the $70 million movie
'Hot Zone' in Kenya but a government official
bungled the deal and cost the country yet another
Hollywood production. South Africa won the bid
after a representative from the American production
company called a Kenyan government official to
ask permission to shoot a film about the deadly
Ebola virus in Kenya.
The official
mistook the word Ebola for Abiola, Nigeria's late
presidential hopeful, and refused on the grounds
that Kenya was a friend of Nigeria and would not
be used to tarnish the name of a country's leader.
The official was apparently unaware that Abiola
Mashood was never installed as president because
military dictator Ibrahim Babangida had cancelled
the elections in 1993.
Shooting
for 'Beyond Borders' is due to start in Bosnia
during the European winter and will move to South
Africa by February next year. Clive Owen and Angelina
Jolie are billed to star in the love story about
two international aid workers who meet in a Somali
refugee camp.
Producers
had wanted to shoot the film in Kenya because
of its scenic beauty, geographical contrasts and
the easy availability of extras to play Somali
roles. But an insurance delay caused the original
stars Kevin Costner and Meg Ryan to opt out and
afforded extra time for the South African Film
Commission to lobby favour from their Kenyan counterpart.
The only
international full feature film shot in Kenya
in recent years is the German movie 'Nowhere in
Africa', which premieres in Europe next month.
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