Four Corners launches in cinemas across South Africa on Friday 28th March 2014.
Director: Ian Gabriel
Producer: Genevieve Hofmeyr
Producer: Cindy Gabriel
Screenwriter: Hofmeyr Scholtz
Logline:
Four lives will change forever as the destinies of a reformed prison general, a local cop, a charismatic gang leader and a surgeon back from London intersect with a young boy's coming of age in a tale of family lost and family regained in the unknown world of the Cape Flats.
Synopsis:
Cape Town today. Home to South Africa's toughest maximum Security prison – Pollsmoor. When Farakahn (Brendon Daniels) a general in the Numbers Gang, is released after 13 years, he wants a quiet life and a 'river of peace'. But he finds himself in a world more violent than when he left it. Now ruthless street gangs – Americans, Nice Times, Mongrels, Dixie Boys – control the ghetto streets, crack and guns are sold openly, and young boys are disappearing, victims of a serial killer. In this turbulent world, Farakahn seeks to make contact with his 13-year-old son – who he’s never known.
Meanwhile Leila Domingo (Lindiwe Matshikiza) ) a London trained doctor, returns home from for her estranged father's funeral. The memories evoked in her father's house – in a suburb that's now part of a running turf war – trigger a wave of conflicting emotions as she struggles to decide what to do with her life. And then Leila comes across Farakahn, recognises him as the boy who lived next door, and finds herself drawn into his world.
13 year old Ricardo (Jezriel Skei) is at a crossroads. A chess prodigy, he is lured in equal measure by the thrill of warfare on the chessboard and the seductive prestige of joining a powerful street gang. Drawn into the unique world of the Cape Flats gangs by the charisma of Americans gang leader Gasant (Irshaad Ally) Ricardo takes his first steps into gang initiation. With no father to guide him, the one adult he looks up to is Captain Tito Hanekom (Abdurahman Adams) a career cop hell bent on tracking down the serial killer. Then another young boy goes missing. Tito's focus shifts away from Ricardo. Ricardo has to make some tough decisions about where his life is headed.
Four Corners is a multi-thread coming of age thriller set in a unique and volatile South African sub culture. Although distinct in subject matter, Four Corners extrapolates universal themes of love, loss, betrayal and kinship. At times raw and violent, at others touching and true, the four lives of Farakhan, Leila, Tito and Gasant converge around Ricardo. All of them will be changed forever.
The film was South Africa’s Official selection for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards and International Press Academy 2014 Satellite Award Nominee for Best International Film.
For as long as issues like gangsterism still affect our communities, we can never have enough of such stories. Stories ought to be told to enlighten the masses.