CHICAGO TRIBUME
By Emma Krupp
RedEye

David Oyelowo has grown weary of African warlords, and white saviors, and homogenized tales of a desolate, starving Africa.

“A lot of the films that we’ve seen in the past have been just that, whether it’s crowbarring a white protagonist into an African story or the lens through which African films have been made, often being white and male,” he said last week in an interview with RedEye at Chicago’s Peninsula Hotel. “It’s not that any of that is wrong, it’s just that we’ve had so much of it. And anyone who knows about eating food would know that a balanced diet is the way forward.”

Oyelowo’s new film “A United Kingdom,” in which he stars as the king of Bechuanaland in modern-day Botswana, is exactly the kind of balanced portrayal of Africa he seeks.

Directed by the Ghanian-British filmmaker Amma Asante, “A United Kingdom” tells the true story of King Seretse Khama and his white, British wife, Ruth Williams (played by the ever-lovely Rosamund Pike), whom he fell in love with and married after meeting in the U.K. Despite international uproar and exile from his country, Khama refused to divorce his wife. He later abdicated the throne and became the first democratically elected president of Botswana.

In both “A United Kingdom” and real life, the love story of Seretse and Ruth transcends genres. For a high-profile interracial couple in the 1940s and ‘50s, being in a relationship meant living a politicized existence—facing the opposition of not just a parent or a community, but entire nations. And although Oyelowo knew “A United Kingdom” could never be a mere romance film, he wanted to narrow the story’s focus on the connection between the couple

“I think love appears in different forms,” Oyelowo said. “But true love, in any form, is—in my opinion—tied to sacrifice. The desire to give without the hope of getting back is the definition of love.”

Sacrifice is obvious in “A United Kingdom,” but Oyelowo sees the influence of sacrificial love in two of his more recent roles—Martin Luther King, Jr. in “Selma” and chess coach Robert Katende in “The Queen of Katwe.” Each film shows the lengths both men are willing to go in order to create a better life for others, even if that pursuit meant putting themselves and their families in danger.

“I think that’s love,” he said. “So I’m very much drawn to those type of characters.”



http://www.chicagotribune.com/redeye/culture/ct-redeye-interview-david-oyelowo-united-kingdom-20170220-story.html

Tom Hardy is on a mission to save elephants and rhinos from poaching. They have never been in such danger

Tom Hardy with a mother and calf in Botswana; the actor tracked the poaching trade across southern Africa for a two-part ITV show (ITV)

THE SUNDAY TIMES

Oliver Thring Published: 18 August 2013

Tom Hardy makes a good living out of playing villains and hardmen in Hollywood movies. But, he says, “the thought of being eaten by a lion for dinner in the middle of the night while taking a piss has a certain anxiety”.

Hardy recently toured four southern African countries and filmed a two-part documentary, to be shown this week, about the poaching crisis stalking the continent. The trip had its dangers.

“The week before I went out,” he says, “what was left of one lad [after a lion attack] was put in a cooler box and sent home to his mum.” In South African townships, if you are accompanied by a camera crew with expensive equipment, “the atmosphere changes when the sun goes down. The odd machete-wielding glue-sniffer tends to raise the blood level.”


READ MORE HERE: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1301479.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_08_17

Gerard Butler: Machine Gun Preacher: Movie Review

Renuka VyavahareRenuka Vyavahare, TNN | Dec 8, 2011, 09.50PM IST

Cast: Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon Director: Marc Forster Genre: Biopic/ war

Machine Gun Preacher showcases one man's journey from hooliganism to humanitarianism.

Machine Gun Preacher is a biopic on Sam Childers, an outlaw biker who amended his errant lifestyle and eventually became the gun bearing messiah for the children of war-torn South Sudan, Africa.

Sam (Gerard Butler) an outlaw biker, drowns himself in drugs and alcohol when he's not in prison serving for drug dealing and other criminal charges. He prefers his wife do the striptease for better income than take up some low paying dignified job.

The hooliganism however comes to a sudden standstill when he realizes he's gone way too far. He takes to Jesus and the church lands him in Sudan where he finds himself staring at the loss of innocent lives in the war-torn barren land of Africa.

Finding redemption in the process of saving innocent lives, Sam not only lets go of his indecent ways but also takes an active part in the Sudan People's Liberation movement.

From a white supremacist who beats up the blacks, to the father who devotes his life for the well being of the Sudanese orphans over his own, the film takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride.

You end up asking yourself, how far can you go to help someone who may not survive to see another day!

Directed by Mark Forster, Machine Gun Preacher is uplifting and depressing at the same time. War, bloodshed, poverty, apathetic society turning a blind eye to those in dire need...the film leaves you with a heavy heart. It makes you want to google Sam Childers and tell him how ashamed you are for not knowing about his fight in Africa, for not thinking beyond your regular petty worries.

The cinematic depiction of the bloody atrocities committed on the Sudanese kids by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is brutally real. It makes you cringe in horror. The film will also remind you a lot of Edward Norton's American History X.

Gerard Butler bares absolutely no physical resemblance to Sam but nevertheless gets into the skin of his character with aplomb. The film revolves around him and just like Sam he single-handedly takes control and holds our attention in the otherwise long docudrama. His body language, mannerisms, glance, psychological unrest speaks volumes of how talented an actor he is. One wonders why someone would waste him in moronic romcoms like The Bounty Hunter! Michael Shannon as Sam's best friend and fellow druggie Donnie impresses too.

Machine Gun Preacher is about preaching and practicing philanthropy. Intense and disturbing, it's a must watch provided you are not too faint hearted.

Verdict: Very Good

Times of India

Gerard Butler: Matthew Jenkin meets the real Machine Gun Preacher, Sam Childers, to find out the truth behind Marc Forster's biopic.

Sam Childers on Gerard Butler, violence and how best to help Africa

2:48pm Friday 4th November 2011

News Shopper

 

SCOTTISH beefcake Gerard Butler returns to the big screen this week as real-life rebel-with-a-cause biker turned missionary Sam Childers in Marc Forster's Machine Gun Preacher.

An ex-con and junkie, Sam turns his life around and travels to south Sudan where he builds an orphanage and takes up arms to protect the region's children from brutal militia group the LRA, led by Joseph Kony, who forces them into war and slavery.


I met up with the real-life Childers in London yesterday in the plush Soho Hotel - a world away from his spiritual home of Africa.

Dressed in a leather jacket, sporting a handlebar moustache and chewing on a tooth pick, he looks every bit the man who Butler portrays so well on film, minus the Kalashnikov.

"A lot of people get hung up about the machine gun, but this movie was pre-2008. It's not like I walk around with a machine gun," Childers reassures me when pressed about his critics' concerns about a preacher using violence to achieve his cause.

"Jesus didn't condone violence, but he said you're worse than an infidel if you don't take care of your family. He wanted you to stand up for yourself.

"I would rescue any child, no matter what the means are.

"Would I pick up a gun again to protect a child? Absolutely. But things have really changed - there hasn't been anyone killed around our orphanage in two years."

Childers says he was approached about making the film after being featured on popular US news programme Dateline.

However, his involvement in the film was minimal and he was initially nervous about the casting.
He said: "I wouldn't have picked Gerard Butler from the start - I didn't know who he was. But after seeing the finished product, I don't think anyone else could've done the role. I thought he did an excellent job."

What's more, his relationship with screenwriter Jason Keeler was less than happy at the beginning.
"I didn't like Jason at all when I first met him," Childers admits.

"But after a year, he was like a rash - you just got used to him.

"He moved himself right into my house after a while. He did a really good job.
"But even though you've got a good screenwriter, once the screenplay leaves his hands, it's out of his hands to. If the director wants to change things or add thngs, he can."
And though changes were made, Childers seems happy enough with the end result. He has seen the film around 20 times now after all.

"The action scenes in Africa were amped up and there were a few little things that were added that were not true. But if the good outweighs the bad, don't bitch!"

Indeed. The small town pastor from Pennsylvania is fast becoming a household name in America, even starring in his own TV show.

But it's all in aid of his charity Angels of East Africa, which continues to help some of the poorest communities people in continent.
Despite his tough exterior, and he is pretty tough at heard too, Childers is defiantly humble about his inspirational work.

So there have been no proud moments in his career, he says.
"If I get big-headed it's time for God to take me out of here.
"I think the thing to ask me is what is my saddest moment: when you can't rescue all the children; when there are starving people to this day; when there's so much starvation in Africa, but there are millions of dollars running through NGOs' hands.

"It's a sad moment when CEOs of NGOs will make half a million dollars.
"The answer to the problem is non-profit groups need to focus on the CEOs of their companies, and how much they're getting paid. I know some who are making $280,000 a year. Totally ridiculous."

Machine Gun Preacher (15) is out in cinemas now.