Latest news with #Davidtz
Time Out
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight makes its South African debut
Joburg film lovers, clear your calendars for 25 July. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, the moving new adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's best-selling memoir, is finally getting its South African premiere. Directed by South African-born actor and filmmaker Embeth Davidtz, this is a story rooted deeply in African soil. Shot in South Africa and adapted for the screen by Davidtz herself, the film offers a rare and emotionally layered portrayal of Zimbabwe's transition from colonial Rhodesia to independence. At the heart of it all is eight-year-old Bobo, played by newcomer Lexi Venter, a young white girl navigating a childhood shaped by grief, shifting family dynamics, and a land at war. The story unfolds through Bobo's eyes, bringing tenderness, innocence, and emotional truth to a time often only seen through historical or political lenses. 'Even in the middle of pain and inherited racism, love and transformation are actually possible,' says Davidtz, who also stars in the film. 'This story helped me process my own childhood in apartheid-era South Africa.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sony Pictures Classics (@sonyclassics) With a stellar local cast that includes Zikhona Bali, Fumani N Shilubana, and Rob Van Vuuren, the film is both intimate and expansive, telling a personal tale against a backdrop of war and cultural upheaval. Behind the scenes, a powerhouse production team backs the film, including executive producers Anele Mdoda, Frankie Du Toit, and Trevor Noah, and acclaimed producers Helena Spring and Paul Buys. Following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film now comes home, offering South African audiences a chance to witness this poignant coming-of-age story where memory, identity, and healing are front and centre.
San Francisco Chronicle
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' shows war through one child's extraordinary eyes
'Are we racists?' That's the blunt question posed by Bobo, a white girl living on a farm in Africa, to her horrified (and defensive) mother. There are so many ways this three-word line reading could land wrongly, or just seem forced or mannered. But it feels thoroughly organic when voiced by Lexi Venter, an extraordinary first-time actor who gives, at age 7, one of the more compelling child performances in recent memory in 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.' It's a performance that was seeded, watered and nurtured by Embeth Davidtz, an extraordinary actor herself who wrote, directed and stars in this adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's admired 2001 memoir. One imagines Davidtz, in her triple role (and as a first-time director), had hundreds upon hundreds of decisions to make. Her most important, though, was finding and casting this youngster possessed of a wild nature, a mop of unruly hair and a face like a broad canvas waiting to be painted. The movie, which chronicles one family's life in the turbulent, waning days of white rule in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), was not always going to be narrated by a child. Davidtz's first attempt at adapting the memoir, told in third person, was too remote, she herself has said. Then she zoomed in on the idea of telling the tale uniquely from Bobo's perspective. Davidtz, who spent much of her childhood in South Africa, was drawn to the project because it recalled her own experience growing up in a world where racial inequality and violence were everywhere, but none of the adult explanations made much sense. The director's own family life also included, like the Fuller family's, mental illness and alcoholism; she has said that neither the outside world nor home life felt safe. And that's how it is for Bobo, 8 years old when we meet her, the younger of two daughters of Nicola and Tim Fuller. We will soon learn that another daughter died as a toddler in a tragic drowning — one of the reasons Nicola (Davidtz) is so emotionally tied to the family farm, as conveyed in one particularly brutal scene brimming with rage. She may not be native to the land, but her offspring is buried in its soil. We begin with Bobo explaining how she's afraid to go alone to pee in the night. 'Terrorists,' as they've been described by the adults, might lurk anywhere, even on the way to the bathroom, carrying a gun or knife or spear. But imaginary threats are accompanied by real ones. During the day, a trip into town with her mother necessitates an escort vehicle. 'I really hope we don't die in an ambush today,' Bobo says casually to an armed guard. This is a child who helps Dad pack his ammo at breakfast. The film, shot in South Africa, is set in the days before and after the 1980 parliamentary election, a crucial vote that will bring the Black majority to power in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. Visiting her parents' home, Nicola patronizingly instructs their Black servants on which candidate to support. At home, Nicola's desperation rages. She drinks bourbon by the bottle and sleeps with a huge gun. She doesn't spend much time with her daughters, which leaves Bobo plenty of time to hang out with the animals, ride her motorbike and smoke cigarettes. Such habits earn Bobo the disapproval of her most valued friend, Sarah (Zikhona Bali, in a warm and nuanced performance), one of two adult servants who work on the farm. The other is Jacob (Fumani N. Shilubana), who warns Sarah that her relationship with Bobo is too publicly affectionate in these precarious times. Besides, he tells her, Bobo thinks of her as a 'stupid village girl.' But there is real affection between the two. Privately, they laugh and share stories. And Sarah, conscious of the risks, tries to be the attentive parent Bobo lacks. When she catches the girl, messy-haired and smudgy-faced, smoking she scolds her. 'There's nothing wrong with me, I'm perfect!' Bobo replies, with the self-belief that comes from a childhood spent bossing around people like Sarah. You can direct moments like this, as Davidtz does expertly while somehow turning in a heartbreaking and increasingly unhinged performance of her own. But you can't manufacture lightning in a bottle — for example, the infectious joy Lexi exudes, even while Bobo's family is losing everything, singing a rowdy song about a stripper. Davidtz has said she searched far and wide to find her star, interviewing experienced child actors but not finding the 'feral' girl she needed. A Facebook search yielded Lexi. Davidtz knew she was right before even meeting her in person. Working with the girl three hours a day, she did not give her a script, but rather provided guidance and let her improvise. Nobody's perfect, though Bobo may think she is. But in Lexi's performance, Davidtz has found something pretty close: a child actor who can carry an entire film and never seem like she's acting. Bobo's story has now been told; let's hope we see young Lexi telling many more.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Embeth Davidtz says Spielberg, Altman influenced her directorial debut
LOS ANGELES, July 11 (UPI) -- Embeth Davidtz makes her screenwriting and directing debut in the film adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, in theaters Friday. As an actor on screen since 1989, Davidtz drew on memories of working with directors like Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List and Robert Altman in The Gingerbread Man while making the feature. In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Davidtz, 59, said she realized she'd been learning from Spielberg and other filmmakers when she stepped behind the camera herself. "I watched Steven set up a shot and be very exacting and specific with his actors," Davidtz said. "I watched Robert Altman move a camera. He had such a beautiful loose style." Davidtz optioned Fuller's book, which chronicles life in Zimbabwe before and after the 1980 election. Her goal was to hire a writer and director, but when she couldn't, decided to take on both roles herself. In her screenplay, Davidtz zeroed in on the portion of the book when 8-year-old Bobo (Lexi Vinter) is living on her parents' farm in Rhodesia, the former Zimbabwe. As the country's 1980 prime minister election approaches, in which Robert Mugabe would defeat Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, Bobo has grown up apprehensive of Black Africans. Directing 8-year-old Lexi also reminded Davidtz of making the 1996 adaptation of Matilda. "Even Danny DeVito's dealing with a child, he was so beautiful with how he worked with Mara Wilson," she said "I think I was taking in things that helped me as a director long before I ever thought of directing something." Bobo's perspective was the only version of the story Davidtz felt comfortable telling as a White South African herself. Bobo talks about watching out for "terrorists," and bosses around the children of her parents' Black employees, because she learned the behavior. "It's not something she made up," Davidtz said. "That gives you the background to the family that she lives in and the society that she lives in." Davidtz also researched the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe, which factors into the story. She credits actors Zikhona Bali and Shilubana Fumani, both South African, with helping her steer potentially volatile scenes between Black and White characters. It also pleased Davidtz to see that behaving like a child of racist White Rhodesians was foreign to Lexi, who lives in modern South Africa. "She doesn't experience South Africa that way now," Davidtz said. "She said, 'Why do they treat them like that?' Which I thought was really actually hopeful to me that she's grown up in a much more integrated place than I did." Davidtz was a teenager in 1980 and living in South Africa following the Zimbabwe election. That is why she related to Fuller's book. "They were in a war which South Africa was not, but there was a lot of violence around us, a lot of oppression and suppression, people pulled off streets and state of emergencies being declared," she said. "Nelson Mandela was locked up that whole time. Anybody like him was either killed or locked up. It was like this pot boiling." In focusing on Bobo's story, Davidtz's own role shrank. She plays Nicola, Bobo's mother who sleeps with a machine gun in case of attacks by people she would consider terrorists. "Nobody wants to see this terribly racist woman behaving badly for an hour and a half," Davidtz said. "Then once I was directing, I was like let's really make that part as small as possible because I can't do all of it at once." Davidtz found Lexi through a Facebook post. It is Lexi's first role and Davidtz wanted an untrained actor. She also shielded Lexi from some of the more adult content of the film. Davidtz filmed with two cameras at once and gave Lexi instructions on how to react. "The way that I worked with her as a non-actor was not to give her a script," Davidtz said. "I didn't give her scenes to learn. If we were in an emotional scene, she didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time." Lexi did get to smoke cigarettes as one of Bobo's acts of rebellion. They were artificial and Davidtz warned her not to smoke real ones. "I said, 'You know why? Because it's going to make you look old and shriveled up before your time,'" she said. "I saw the eyes widen and she registered what I was saying." Now that Davidtz has directed, she would consider doing it again. She said, however, that it would have to be another passion project like Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. "I'd have to love my story as much as I love this story," she said. "I fell in love with that memoir. I just thought she'd done such a brilliant job creating those characters and the characters are the reason I thought, 'Oh, this would tell a great story.'"
Vogue
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Actor and Filmmaker Embeth Davidtz on Bringing Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight to the Screen
Was playing Bobo's mother difficult for you? In so many ways. I had to do that whipping scene [Davidtz's character tries to expel Black squatters from her farm], and I had to play a woman who talks in a certain way to the African women who come to her for help—all of it deeply uncomfortable, deeply saddening. You know, the body doesn't forget. The body keeps the score and hobbles all that stuff inside of you. I was standing with my all-Black South African crew, reenacting things that some of them were of an age to remember. So it was very difficult, but at the same time, strangely cathartic and victorious to come back and tell the truth, and not stand there as a white woman and say, 'This didn't happen,' or be too scared to confront the racism of the past. It's still there, in the DNA of the place, and what they inherited too. In the book, there is that painful confrontation with the racism of the parents, and their mental health and frailties. But the book also has a romance to it. Alexandra managed to show both her love and her unease—the disconnection from the way her family might think versus how she ultimately began to think as she grew up. And the same thing holds for me. It's always both: there's loss and the return is a refueling. Alexandra coined the term when I was busy writing—she said, 'You know, this is the anti-Out of Africa.' And that's what I set out to do. One of the amazing strengths of the movie is the African setting, which is so visceral and disordered. I gather it was shot in South Africa? I really wanted to shoot in Zimbabwe, but we didn't have the money and we didn't have the infrastructure. But the topography is different, and I think Zimbabweans might really sort of hold my feet to the fire, but God, I tried. Even in the final mix, when I was adjusting the color, I asked, 'Can we make it more green?' I got a great set designer [Anneke Dempsey] who understood the brief, because I said it's all broken, decaying. There's nothing shiny and clean about the Fullers' house. In fact, I think the actual Fullers' house was probably more organized and tidy than the one in the film. But I needed to tell a lot with the location. Working with my cinematographer [Willie Nel], I just said, 'I have to see the dust and the dirt, because it tells a story.' Bobo's feet are unwashed, her hair is unwashed. Her mother has drifted away from her and is not washing that hair. Her grandmother says, 'She smells.' I had to show the audience what I could visually: How does something smell and look when a system is in decay?
UPI
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- UPI
Embeth Davidtz says Spielberg, Altman influenced her directorial debut
1 of 5 | Embeth Davidtz, seen at the 2017 American Cinematheque Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., adapted, directed and stars in "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo LOS ANGELES, July 11 (UPI) -- Embeth Davidtz makes her screenwriting and directing debut in the film adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, in theaters Friday. As an actor on screen since 1989, Davidtz drew on memories of working with directors like Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List and Robert Altman in The Gingerbread Man while making the feature. In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Davidtz, 59, said she realized she'd been learning from Spielberg and other filmmakers when she stepped behind the camera herself. "I watched Steven set up a shot and be very exacting and specific with his actors," Davidtz said. "I watched Robert Altman move a camera. He had such a beautiful loose style." Davidtz optioned Fuller's book, which chronicles life in Zimbabwe before and after the 1980 election. Her goal was to hire a writer and director, but when she couldn't, decided to take on both roles herself. In her screenplay, Davidtz zeroed in on the portion of the book when 8-year-old Bobo (Lexi Vinter) is living on her parents' farm in Rhodesia, the former Zimbabwe. As the country's 1980 prime minister election approaches, in which Robert Mugabe would defeat Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, Bobo has grown up apprehensive of Black Africans. Directing 8-year-old Lexi also reminded Davidtz of making the 1996 adaptation of Matilda. "Even Danny DeVito's dealing with a child, he was so beautiful with how he worked with Mara Wilson," she said "I think I was taking in things that helped me as a director long before I ever thought of directing something." Bobo's perspective was the only version of the story Davidtz felt comfortable telling as a White South African herself. Bobo talks about watching out for "terrorists," and bosses around the children of her parents' Black employees, because she learned the behavior. "It's not something she made up," Davidtz said. "That gives you the background to the family that she lives in and the society that she lives in." Davidtz also researched the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe, which factors into the story. She credits actors Zikhona Bali and Shilubana Fumani, both South African, with helping her steer potentially volatile scenes between Black and White characters. It also pleased Davidtz to see that behaving like a child of racist White Rhodesians was foreign to Lexi, who lives in modern South Africa. "She doesn't experience South Africa that way now," Davidtz said. "She said, 'Why do they treat them like that?' Which I thought was really actually hopeful to me that she's grown up in a much more integrated place than I did." Davidtz was a teenager in 1980 and living in South Africa following the Zimbabwe election. That is why she related to Fuller's book. "They were in a war which South Africa was not, but there was a lot of violence around us, a lot of oppression and suppression, people pulled off streets and state of emergencies being declared," she said. "Nelson Mandela was locked up that whole time. Anybody like him was either killed or locked up. It was like this pot boiling." In focusing on Bobo's story, Davidtz's own role shrank. She plays Nicola, Bobo's mother who sleeps with a machine gun in case of attacks by people she would consider terrorists. "Nobody wants to see this terribly racist woman behaving badly for an hour and a half," Davidtz said. "Then once I was directing, I was like let's really make that part as small as possible because I can't do all of it at once." Davidtz found Lexi through a Facebook post. It is Lexi's first role and Davidtz wanted an untrained actor. She also shielded Lexi from some of the more adult content of the film. Davidtz filmed with two cameras at once and gave Lexi instructions on how to react. "The way that I worked with her as a non-actor was not to give her a script," Davidtz said. "I didn't give her scenes to learn. If we were in an emotional scene, she didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time." Lexi did get to smoke cigarettes as one of Bobo's acts of rebellion. They were artificial and Davidtz warned her not to smoke real ones. "I said, 'You know why? Because it's going to make you look old and shriveled up before your time,'" she said. "I saw the eyes widen and she registered what I was saying." Now that Davidtz has directed, she would consider doing it again. She said, however, that it would have to be another passion project like Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. "I'd have to love my story as much as I love this story," she said. "I fell in love with that memoir. I just thought she'd done such a brilliant job creating those characters and the characters are the reason I thought, 'Oh, this would tell a great story.'"
