David Guwaza Movies

A young man finds it's not always easy to navigate the rocky waters of love and sex in this teen-themed comedy-drama from Zimbabwe. Tiyane (Leroy Gopal) is a fairly typical teenager; he likes to play soccer, tries to do well in his studies, and has girls on the brain. However, Tiyane hasn't had much luck in finding a girlfriend, and his streetwise friendo), a pretty girl he has known since childhood, and the two start dating; one night Skido (Collin Dube) urges him to take a more aggressive approach. Tiyane decides to turn on the charm to Linda (Ratidzo Mambafter getting caught in a sudden rainstorm, one thing leads to another and the couple have sex for the first time. But it isn't long before Tiyane's eyes begin to wander, and he soon drops Linda for Juliet (Kasamba Mkumba), a pretty girl from a wealthy family. Linda feels awful, but soon finds it's more than just a matter of wounded pride -- she's pregnant. Tiyane is confused and angered by Linda's predicament; he thinks his problems are over when Linda is sent away by her family to have the baby, until he learns that Juliet is far less eager to give in to her impulses than Linda. Yellow Card received its American premiere at the 2000 Mill Valley Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In Zimbabwe's traditional culture, when a woman's husband dies, the man's brothers (if any) are supposed to take care of her and, after a year set aside for mourning, they are supposed to marry her. Mind you, in these circumstances nobody asks the widow anything about what she prefers. In this melodramatic story (with a few comic touches), Neria has just lost her husband and her brother-in-law has decided to take full advantage of the situation. The sort of man who likes to torment people just for the fun of it, he not only reduces Neria to servitude, but tries to bribe her children so that they turn against her. One day, she has altogether all she can stand, and seeks out a good lawyer. Her brother-in-law has a good lawyer too, and her freedom looks like it is very much in jeopardy, except that she is lucky in the judge for the case, who sets things right. Neria also refuses to marry any of her other brothers' in law after the year of mourning is up, scandalizing her relatives. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

John G. Avildsen, director of Rocky and The Karate Kid, adapts Bryce Courtenay's compassionate novel about the coming of age of a white anti-apartheid activist during the years of World War II in South Africa. Avildsen cumbersomely grafts Courtenay's tale of fighting apartheid onto a Hollywood-style fight-for-the-championship bout. Seven-year-old P.K. (Guy Witcher) is a white South African raised on his family's farm by his Zulu nanny. When his mother takes ill, he is sent away to an Afrikaner boarding school, where he is picked on and nearly killed by the school bully during a pep rally for Hitler. P.K. survives and is sent to live with his grandfather. He befriends Doc (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a jailed German musician, and a black inmate (Morgan Freeman), who teaches P.K. how to use his fists for some quick boxing moves. At 12, P.K. (now played by Simon Fenton), witnesses black inmates being cruelly humiliated by their racist white jailers. Taking note of P.K.'s fluidity for languages, his black mentor spreads the word that P.K. is the incarnation of the mythic Rain Maker, a messianic liberator who is destined to unite all the African tribes. By the time he's 18 years old, P.K. (now played by Stephen Dorff) is becoming the Great White Hope for the black Africans, boxing his way into their hearts and minds. He joins up with an old boxing foe (Alois Moyo), who is now a township activist, and takes up the apartheid struggle. But things get confusing when P.K. falls in love with the daughter (Fay Masterson) of an apartheid leader. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi