FROM ACCLAIMED WRITER/DIRECTOR JAHMIL X.T QUBEKA
There are 3 ways out of Knuckle City. Through the Ring. In the back of a Cop Car. In a Pine Box
TIFF Screenings:
Premiere: Sat. Sept 7, 10 PM, Scotia 2
Public 2: Mon. Sept 9, 12:30 PM, Scotia 14
Public 3: Sat. Sept 14, 3:15 PM, Scotia 13
P&I: Mon. Sept 9, 2 PM, Scotia 11
TIFF Advance Screening: August 27. Time/Location TBD
Run time: 2h4m
Talent available for interviews:
Phoners in advance of TIFF: Writer/director J.X.T. Qubeka
Sept 5-7: J.X.T Qubeka, Bongile Mantsai (“Dudu Nyakama”)
Screening link available upon request
Press materials available at: http://www.knucklecityfilm.com/ (live Friday, August 16)
Follow us at:
Facebook: @knucklecityfilm
Instagram: @knuckle_city
Toronto. August 13, 2019. Pascal Schmitz of AAA Entertainment together with Layla Swart of Yellowbone Entertainment are pleased to announce that award-winning director Jahmil X.T. Qubeka’s (South Africa’s Oscar submission Sew the Winter to My Skin, of Good Report) crime drama, Knuckle City, will have its international premiere in the Contemporary World Cinema programme at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Knuckle City – a slice of life in South Africa’s Mdantsane township in which we follow the journey of Dudu (Mantsai), a down-and-out boxer as he struggles to take part in the one fight that he believes will uplift his fractured family. Knowing that the boxing world is rife with criminality, he enlists the help of Duke (Komani), his reckless, but resourceful gangster brother. Haunted by the ghost of their father, Dudu soon finds that the fight at home is far more challenging than any opponent he could possibly face in the ring.
The film is based on a script by Qubeka and is produced by Layla Swart (Where Has Time Gone, Sew the Winter to My Skin). It was filmed on location in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape, South Africa.
Knuckle City stars Bongile Mantsai (Knuckle City Best Actor Award/Durban Film Festival, SAFTA Golden Horn Award Inxeba, Sew the Winter to My Skin), Thembekile Komani (Jab), Faniswa Yisa (Stillborn Twisting Fate, Jab, Skin), Patrick Ndlovu (The Killing Floor, Everyman’s Taxi), Siv Ngesi (Black Sails, Finders Keepers, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom), and Owen Sejake (iNumber, Number, Shake Hands with the Devil, Tsotsi, Beat the Drum).
“Over the years, TIFF has been a fundamental platform in launching my work to the world. Their unwavering support of distinct directorial voices worldwide is unparalleled. I am honored that I have the opportunity to return for a third time. The film, Knuckle City explores how inherited toxicity can form the basis of the misdirected choices made daily by frustrated black youth. The primal fight for survival is oft curtailed by an undue obligation to pernicious kin,” says J.X.T. Qubeka.
Cinematography by multi-award winning Willie Nel (Hopeville, Meerkat Maantuig, Sleeper’s Wake), with editing by Layla Swart, costume design by Pierre Viennings (Five Fingers for Marseilles, Winnie, ‘Master Harold’ …And the Boys, Tsotsi), hair and make design by Babalwa Mtshiselwa (Five Fingers for Marseilles, Nommer 37, Madiba) and sound design by Guy Steer (Ayanda and the Mechanic, The Silent Form, Orbis).
Knuckle City is distributed by Indigenous Films Distribution in Africa and world sales are being handled by AAA Entertainment.
ABOUT JAHMIL X.T QUBEKA
Jahmil X.T. Qubeka is one of South Africa’s most acclaimed and prolific filmmakers. Jahmil has been internationally and locally acknowledged for his directorial work and has premiered feature films in almost every significant festival across the globe. Jahmil has directed a plethora of documentaries, television dramas, commercials and feature films, for which he has received the highest accolades for his work including a Peabody and a BAFTA and has persevered and triumphed in this testing industry despite coming of age in a turbulent period of this country’s past. Jahmil’s sophomore feature film Of Good Report (2013) went on to garner multiple awards and plaudits. It had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, and is also the first African film to be selected for official competition at the London BFI International Film Festival. The film went on to win a BAFTA, several SAFTAS and multiple African Movie Academy Awards. In 2016, Jahmil was selected alongside Walter Salles and Jia Zhangke to represent South Africa with his film Stillborn in a BRICS Anthology Collection which premiered in China (2017). Jahmil’s 2018 film, Sew the Winter to My Skin, was selected for the exclusive Cannes L’Atelier program (2017), awarded the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was chosen to represent South Africa at the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Category. The film has won numerous awards including Best Film at the SAFTAs and Best Director at AFRIFF, with critics hailing it as a brave departure from the norm of South African cinema. Jahmil is co-owner and Creative Director of the award-winning company Yellowbone Entertainment and is a visionary of South African cinema, striving always to create authentic, ground-breaking work of the highest standards.
ABOUT YELLOWBONE ENTERTAINMENT
Yellowbone Entertainment is a South African Film and Television Production company with a focus on the pioneering of authentic black South African content for an international market. Formed in 2017, Yellowbone Entertainment is a multi-award-winning production house at the forefront of South African content creation.
ABOUT AAA ENTERTAINMENT
AAA Entertainment is one of the few all-round African distribution companies that both exports African content to the world market, as well distributes content within Africa to all linear and non-linear platforms and theatrical outlets. We understand the African market and audiences, as well as the indigenous artists and engineers of African content and IP, and AAA Entertainment works to maximise the synergy between these two.
Media Contact: Cynthia Amsden cynthia@roundstonepr.com +1.416.910.7740