It’ll close the 66th Festival Canne Film Festival this week, where it’s making its World Premiere.
Here’s your first look at Zulu, a film that we’ve been tracking for about a year now, since it was first announced, starring Forest Whitaker and Orlando Bloom in a Cape Town, South Africa-set crime drama, which is based on French author Caryl Férey’s award winning novel of the same name.
The film is directed by French helmer Jérôme Salle – his first film in English.
Recapping… Set against the backdrop of post-apartheid South Africa, Whitaker and Bloom play two South African police officers on opposing sides of the apartheid divide, who work together to fight crime.
Here’s the production company’s description of the filmed version of the novel:
As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain. Today, Ali is chief of the homicide branch of the South African police in Cape Town. One of his staff is Brian Epkeen, a free-wheeling white officer whose family was originally involved in the establishment of apartheid but who works well with Neuman. Together they have to deal with crime that inevitably exists in sprawling areas of un -and under- employed people, crime exacerbated by gangs, both local and from other parts of Africa. Their job gets even more difficult when the corpses of two young women are found. A new evil has been introduced in the city and a new drug has been introduced to its residents, including both murder victims. At the chaotic crossroads where brutality and modernization collide, the echoes of apartheid still resound in the shadows of a society struggling toward reconciliation.
Whitaker is Ali Neuman, and Bloom is Brian Epkeen.
Director Salle directed from his own script adaptation of a novel that has been reviewed fairly well. Last year, Tamara Brown wrote a Book-To-Film report on this project for S&A, which you’re encouraged to read HERE.
The film is a French/English/South African co-production by Pathé, M6 Films, and Lobster Film.
Award-winning French film composer Alexandre Desplat is scoring the film. He’s has worked on a variety of Hollywood films including independent and commercial successes like The Queen, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moorise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, The King’s Speech, and many others.
Here’s your first look at the film via 2 clips and a behind-the-scenes compilation:
