FTW scribe wins French film award

FTW’s Swaziland correspondent James Hall, who has also reported from several SADC countries for Now Media, donned his other hat as film director and picked up a film award at the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in France recently. “Les Guerriers Swazis Decouvrent Le Vin Francais (Swazi Warriors Discover French Wine),” shot in SiSwati with French subtitles, received the Fernand Raynaud Award for Best Comedy. In the film, four young warriors from King Mswati’s traditional regiments in full warrior attire open a bottle of French burgundy and speculate on its romantic properties – becoming, as men do who start imbibing, instant experts on a subject they know nothing about, in this case the sexual history of Europeans. Over 3400 films were entered at Clermont- Ferrand. Hall’s film was the first movie from Swaziland in the festival’s 30 years.