HOMOPHOBIA
REARS ITS HEAD IN CAPETOWN
As an event producer, I know exactly
what it feels like to have your posters advertising
an event removed from the street poles.
In my case it was usually bergies
removing them to sell as cardboard, or the council
removing them because they did not have the very
expensive council sticker on them, making it illegal.
I’ve never had all my posters removed in one
shot though.
I can imagine how festival director
Nodi Murphy must feel. |
|
In just two days, every single one of
the 700 posters advertising the 16th Annual Gay and Lesbian
Film Festival was removed, in what can only be described
as an act of homophobia.
At a cost of R32 000.00, the poster campaign
was a valuable marketing tool to promote the festival.
It does not really matter that the office of the executive
mayor of Cape Town had approved and paid for the posters.
They are gone.
Because of the systematic and thorough
removal of the posters, it is suspected that a religious
or rightwing group is behind the sabotage.
Murphy said there had been many messages
praising the poster design and queries as to where the
posters had gone.
She also served as International Criminal
Court judge in The Hague, Netherlands, from 2003 to 2008.
In September 2008, she was appointed United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and she is
listed at 64 in Forbes Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful
Women in The World.
Navanethem Pillay deserves The Yummie
Award for determination, resolve and achievement.
|
I
couldn’t find a copy of the poster on the
web, so I decided to make my own and post it on
this site.
This poster was not designed as a work of art. It
was designed to grab attention.
I hope the organizers are not going to hold this
against me.
Maybe it will help just a little?
|
Launched in 1994 to celebrate the constitution
prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation,
the festival is on at the Nu Metro V&A Waterfront
until Sunday.
17 International feature films and nine
South African productions are showcased, and the controversial
film, "X.X.Y", which the South African Film
and Publications' Board recently unbanned, is also on
the line-up.
The country's first full length lesbian feature film,
"Dykeumentary", will have its world première
at the festival.
Kader Khan
Editor
info@yummie.co.za
