Movie Chronicles: 2020: Movie Chronicles, #220

2nd Edition

Copyright Brett G. Dillon 2024

Photograph Copyright B.G. Dillon 2024

Table Of Contents

Introduction

History

Films

Africa

Adu

Argentina

El Cazador

Fangio: El Hombre Qui Domaba Las Maquinas

Australia

Combat Wombat

The Dry

Go!

Hating Peter Tachell

Miss Fisher & The Crypt Of Tears

100% Wolf

Rams

Sweet River

Unsound

Austria

Das Schaurige Haus

Belgium

Bigfoot Family

Canada

Fe@rless_

Jusqu’an Déclin

The Kid Detective

Love And Monsters

Made You Look

My Salinger Year

Chile

El Agente Topo

Nadir Saba Qui Estoy Aqui

China

Monster Run

Over The Moon

Zheng Tu

Egypt

Secrets Of The Saqqara Tomb

England

A Christmas Gift From Bob

Blitzed!

Citadel

Come Away

His House

Made In Italy

Ronald And Beatrice

Sitting In Limbo

The Trip To Greece

France

Belle Perdue

I Can Hear The Sun

Interdit Aux Chiens et Aux Italiens

Kubrick By Kubrick

Ottolenghi And The Cakes Of Versailles

La Terre et le Sang

Germany

Betonrausch

Drachenretter

Freaks: Du Bist Eine Von Uns

Isi & Osi

Tal Dia Hizo Un Anyo

Und Morgen Die Ganz Welt

India

Ghost Stories

Indonesia

Bucin

Garu-Garu Gokil

Wave Of Cinema

Italy

L’Incredibile Storia dell’Isola Rose

Japan

Ainu Moshiri

Âya To Majo

Minamata

Nakitai Watashi Wa Neko O Kaburo

Rurôni Kenshin: Sai Shûshô – The Beginning

Rurôni Kenshin: Sai Shûshô – The Final

Uchû De Ichiban Akarui Yane

Yakuza To Kazoku: The Family

Mauritius

Jungle Beat: The Movie

Mexico

El Bail de los 41

El Camino de Xico

The Old Ways

Selva Tragica

Netherlands

De Slag Om De Schelde

Preslief: Een Ode Pan de Kat

New Zealand

Baby Done

Before Everest

Foods For Coping

The Girl On The Bridge

James Roque: Boy Mestizo

The Legend Of Baron To’a

Loimata: The Sweetest Tears

NZ Airforce: Then And Now

Rūrangi

Savage

This Town

Tupaia’s Endeavour

Vintage

Nigeria

Nneka, The Pretty Serpent

Norway

Flukten Over Grensen

Kadaver

Palestine

Al-hadiya

200 Meters

Poland

W Lesie Dzis Nie Zasnie Nakt

Russia

Silver Skates

Saudi Arabia

The Dissident

Singapore

Andre And His Olive Tree

South Africa

Escape From Pretoria

My Octopus Teacher

South Korea

The Larva Island Movie

Kol

#Saraitda

Sanyangeui Sigan

Spain

Akelarre

Lua Vermella

Malnazidos

Ofrenda de la Tormenta

Salir Del Ropero

Voces

Sweden

Samtidigt Pä Jorden

Taiwan

Da Pen Ti

The Rope Curse 2

Your Name Engraved Herein

USA

A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting

After Truth

An American Pickle

Athlete A

The Babysitter: Killer Queen

Bill And Ted Face The Music

Birds Of Prey

The Boys In The Band

Brahms: The Boy II

Canvas

Capote

The Christmas Chronicles II

Class Action Park

Coded Bias

Come Play

Concrete Cowboy

Crip Camp

Disclosure

Enola Holmes

Fantasy Island

Freaky

If Anything Happens To You

The Invisible Man

The Last Thing He Wanted

Lost Girls

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Mank

Mankind

The Midnight Sky

The New Mutants

Non Western

The Old Guard

Onward

Pieces Of A Woman

The Sleepover

Sonic The Hedgehog

Soul

Spongebob Movie: Sponge On The Run

Spontaneous

Tenet

Think Like A Dog

Totally Under Control

The Trial Of The Chicago Seven

Two Distant Strangers

Unfit: The Psychology Of Donald Trump

Vampires Vs The Bronx

We Can Be Heroes

Wendy

The Willoughbys

The Witches

Wonder Woman 1984

Deaths

Index

Introduction

The Movie Chronicles series of books are based upon the scripts for Movie Chronicles, the podcast. The format can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of the Dark Ages (if you are so inclined to go back that far). During the course of coarsely writing the scripts for this podcast series I found I needed to institute some rules.

The major rule concerns Spoilers. Regular listeners to the podcast know how much I abhor this very concept. It is an internet meme designed by halfwits to bully halfwits. I’m not a halfwit. However, in order to appease the wrath of halfwits, the rule is that there are no spoilers in movies less than 10 years old (after that period I assume there are so any spoilers out there that my contribution doesn’t matter). As always, there are exceptions to the rule – these are documentaries – which are films that have already been spoiled before they have been released... according to the halfwitted spoiler theory.

In this book I am trying to portray the links between history and pop culture (and the history of pop culture) around the world. As a reader in English, I am happy to predict that, if you are happy watching the latest US blockbusters, then this is NOT the series for you. If you want to explore world cinema, then hop on board for the ride. None of the books in this series are definitive (in the meaning of covering every movie from every country released in a particular year). It is more in the nature of a survey (in which there is a large amount of reviewer bias in the selection). I hope, at best, to peg out the general territory, and allow you to note some themes within a year through multiple countries.

Format

The movie list is at the front of the book. At the back is the list of people, places and events that are in the main text. This is formatted as:-

Name  Film  Country

e.g.

Abate, Alessando  Martin Eden  Italy

Thus, Alessandro Abate worked on the movie Martin Eden and this movie can be found in the Italian section. Simple, right?

When the person appears in more than one film, this looks like

Canet, Guillaume  Au Nom de la Terre  France

La Belle Epoque  France

When an entry is BOLD then this entry is where the biography can be found.

The cast and crew list are not definitive – especially in the cast list, which only covers the main actors in the film, and then people of interest to me lower down in the cast order.

Dictionary

In the course of this book, I use specialist terms. There’s no avoiding it. I try to explain each when they first appear, or be self-explanatory in their first appearance. In order to helpful, here’s a list of those words.

ANZAC – Australia, New Zealand Army Corps. This term first appeared in WWI, coming from the invasion of modern Turkey at Gallipoli in 1915. The British Army needed a term to describe the combined Australian and New Zealand Armies. Since then, the two countries have combined forces in most of the wars they have fought and so the term has endured. It has also morphed into a description of the union of the two countries and as a verb implying martial spirit akin to the Spartans of ancient Greece.

Aotearoa – New Zealand (Maori for Land of The Long White Cloud).

Aussie – Australian (also OZ for Australia and Godzone for New Zealand).

BAFTA – British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Brexit – the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

CGI – Computer Generated Imagery.

DOP – Director Of Photography.

Dunny – Toilet.

EU – European Union.

fps – frames per second. Film proceeds at individual frames per second. This has remained unchanged until recent years (due to the cost of film), and has changed dramatically recently, when digital technology allowed a frame rate, closer to what the human eye uses, at a reasonable cost.

GDP – Gross Domestic Product.

Hawaiki – mystical land that Maori originally emigrated from, and to which they return.

IMF – International Monetary Fund.

Kiwi – is NOT a fruit. You’re thinking of kiwifruit. Kiwi always refers to an animal – either the national flightless bird of New Zealand, or a citizen of the country. I really don’t know how people confuse this terminology, after all, the kiwifruit isn’t a fruit, it’s a berry.

Music/Composer – There are some slight differences made between the credit list and the biographies which have been made for clarity. Thus, a person supplies the Music in the credit list and his career as a composer is covered in the biography. A person provides the Script for a film, and their career as a Scriptwriter is covered in the biography.

LAMDA – London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NHS – National Health Service.

NZIFF – New Zealand International Film Festival.

OE – Overseas Experience. This is the Rite of Passenger for New Zealand and Australian children. We’re always at the centre of the world and this is the process by which the borders of this world are expanded.

Pakeha/Palagi – non-native.

POV – Point Of View.

RADA – Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

UN – United Nations.

UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

WHO – World Health Organisation.

CoVid-19 Fatality Rate (by Country/2020)

This is probably the fairest way to compare how different countries have thrived (or otherwise) under the pandemic. The only confounding factor is the state of Health Care in the country (which is ameliorated by a timely and effective response to the crisis).

Please also note that the percentage figure favours countries with large populations. For instance: the US figure of 1.71% represents 459 278 deaths (roughly half of the world’s total). The New Zealand figure of 1.08% represents 25 deaths (of very few infections).

Egypt: 5.63%

China: 5.36%

Mexico: 4.35%

Italy: 3.48%

England: 2.84%

Africa: 2.59%

Germany: 2.56%

South Africa 2.52%

Argentina: 2.49%

France: 2.43%

Spain: 2.22%

Sweden: 2.05%

South Korea: 1.82%

Poland: 1.81%

USA: 1.71%

Japan: 1.52%

Benin: 1.35%

Nigeria: 1.8%

New Zealand: 1.08%

Taiwan: 0.98%

Singapore: 0.07%

Netherlands: 0.3%

Norway: 0.20%

Australia: 0.15%

Belgium: 0.007%

Mauritius: 0.0005%

History

As much of the history of this year relates to the Corona Virus, I have put the information for individual countries as the opening entry for that country. The general history of the Virus is found in this section.

January

January 1 – The 2019 Australian Bush Fires continued creating a Black Summer (a yellow/orange summer in New Zealand as smoke particles hung in the atmosphere).

January 2 – The government of New South Wales, Australia declared a State of Emergency, the government of Victoria, Australia, a State of Disaster in response to the bush fires that have been estimated to have killed 500 million animals (put another Koala on the bushfire, Stu). Due to reporting of this disaster in the US, its citizens begin to realise that Australia is roughly the size of Continental USA.

January 9 – A circum-binary planet was discovered. This rare rock is named, with amatory intent, TOI 1338-b (I’m guessing the b stands for sexy beast).

January 16 – The first impeachment trial of US President, Donald Trump began. Witnesses to his crimes were not allowed to give evidence.

January 29 – US President, Donald Trump, signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a deal to replace NAFTA, a free trade deal. Both Mexico and Canada were both foolish enough to sign.

January 30 – The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Covid-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

January 31 – The United Kingdom and Gibraltar formally withdrew from the European Union (EU) in a process called Brexit.

February

February 5 – US President, Donald Trump was acquitted of his impeachment charges because his party, rather than serving the people, decided to serve themselves.

February 11 – WHO officially named the novel coronavirus Covid-19. There was not much celebration at the christening.

February 23 – Riots broke out in Delhi, India.

February 27 – The US stock market plummeted over fears of Covid-19.

February 28 – NATO ambassadors condemned a pro-Syrian air attack on Turkish soldiers, in which 33 were killed.

February 29 – Luxembourg (ironically) became the first country in the world to offer free public transport to all.

A peace agreement was signed between the US and the Afghanistan Taliban that called for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan beginning on March 10. The US President admits the USA is a loser.

March

March 5 – The International Criminal Court authorised Afghanistan War Crimes to be investigated. This is the first time US citizens could be held to account for their crimes overseas.

March 9 – US stock values plummeted; as do oil prices.

March 11 – WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

March 12 – As proof that stock market values are pure fantasy and a con, global markets went into free fall as a result of the WHO’s announcement.

March 13 – Nepal announced that Mount Everest will be closed to climbers for the coming season.

March 16 – The US stock market plummeted even further, reaching a depth that exceeds that achieved in 1929. US President, Donald Trump, came to believe it was a global conspiracy to prevent him winning the coming election in the USA ([because the US IS the world, in his world-view] I will merely point out that, if the market value falls because he does nothing, then he can take no credit when he does nothing and the value is high. Either he is responsible for both states or he is a narcissist who thinks the world revolves around himself).

March 17 – The EU closed its borders to attempt to contain Covid-19.

March 20 – Covid-19 fatalities world-wide exceed 10 000.

March 24 – India went into lockdown.

March 26 – The world death toll from Covid reached 23 000. The US, at this moment, won the race for the greatest number of deaths. It maintained this lead, by quite a large margin, for the rest of the year.

April

April 1 – The Yemen government released 470 prisoners amid concerns of the spread of Covid in its crowded prison system. The UN called for the release of all political prisoners for the same reason.

April 2 – There are now 1 million confirmed cases of Covid around the world.

April 5 – YouTube announced it would remove all video promoting a conspiracy theory that 5G disseminates the Covid-19 virus (how an electronic protocol can do this has never been explained. The best I can do is that the theory assumes something like the transmission science in the movie The Fly (any version). Living matter is turned into electronic form and then is transmitted into a human and then (with no known mechanism) reassembled into a living matter form which then infects this host. I know! It doesn’t make even the most basic of sense. It assumes a transportation break-through, that is kept hidden, and that is used to infect people rather than transport goods cheaply around the world. The masterminds behind this conspiracy would have to be as thick as snot left to dry in the sun for a week. Just think of all the economic losses they must endure through this pandemic, compared to the huge profits they could be making having every city in the world use this technology for transportation purposes. It also assumes these geniuses invented the virus. I think the people who believe this conspiracy theory are confused about the difference between a biological virus and a computer virus to the point they think these two things are interchangeable). The conspiracy theorists set fire to mobile phone masts and made death threats against broadband engineers.

April 6 – The US designated the Russian Imperial Movement to be a terrorist organisation. It is the first US White Supremacist group to be so classified.

April 10 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo reported its first case of Ebola since February.

The BepiColomba space probe set off for Venus.

The Covid-19 death toll reached 100 000.

EU finance Ministers announced a 540 Euro loan package to alleviate the economic effects of the pandemic.

April 12 – OPEC countries and their allies agreed to cut oil production (A world under lockdown wasn’t buying).

April 14 – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it expected the global economy to shrink by 3% as a result of the pandemic. This is the largest pie shrivelling since the Great Depression of the nineteen-twenties. Neo-Classicist Economists around the world began to note their model for reality had no connection to it.

April 19 – The deadliest massacre in Canadian history occurred at Portapique, Nova Scotia. 23 people were killed.

Vietnam condemned China for violating its sovereignty in the disputed areas of Paracel and the Spratly Islands.

Rioting broke out in Paris, Berlin and Vladikavkaz as bored citizens under lockdown looked for something to do. They are unable to find anything constructive.

April 20 – The Industrial Bank of Korea agreed to pay the US Department of Justice and the State of New York $86 million to settle lawsuits relating to a scheme to transfer $1 billion to Iran.

April 22 – Iran sent into space its first military satellite.

April 23 – Too little, too late, Facebook removed pseudoscience and conspiracy theory as options for targeted ads. It is under growing criticism for spreading lies, misinformation and being used as a platform to undermine democracy. (Also, in its 2021 attack on official Australian news sources, it was arguing that it is a publisher of this information. This is why it had to backpedal. The hypocrisy of its position was drawing hostile interest from other countries).

April 25 – The global death toll from Covid 19 reached 200 000. The US decided this was a target it can reach all by itself.

April 26 – King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced that adults will no longer be executed for crimes they committed as minors.

April 28 – A radio burst is detected coming from Magnetar SGR 1935+2154. This is the first such burst detected from outside the Milky Way Galaxy.

May

May 4 – A team of British and Kenyan scientists discovered a parasitical fungus that blocks mosquitos from carrying malaria.

May 6 – Astronomers announced the discovery of the first Black Hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye.

May 9 – Chinese and Indian soldiers got into a brawl on the Nathu crossing border.

May 11 – The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology published findings that the fossils found in the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria are Homo Sapien and not Neanderthal.

May 12 – Gunmen entered a maternity hospital in Afghanistan and murder 24 people, including two new born babies.

May 14 – Global death toll from Covid-19 reached 300 000.

The UN warns of a global mental health crisis brought on by isolation, fear, uncertainty and economic turmoil.

May 15 – The 2.5cm millipede fossil found on the island of Kerrera in the Scottish Inner Hebrides was dated at 425 million years of age (the birthday cake ran out of space for the candles). It is the oldest recorded land animal yet discovered.

May 16 – Businessman, Felicien Kabuga was arrested in France after spending 26 years as a fugitive. He as one of the masterminds (but poop-brained) of the Rwandan genocide.

May 19 – Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, terminated all agreements with Israel and the US, as a response to Israeli plans to annex the Jordan Valley.

May 21 – Unusually taking its cue from Palestine, the US announced its withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty as a response to continuous violations by Russia.

Cyclone Amphan battered India and Bangladesh, killing 100 people and forcing over 4 million others to evacuate.

May 22 – President Jair Bolsonaro continued to dismiss the threat of the Covid pandemic even as his country reached second place for the highest number of infections.

May 24 – Mining Company, Rio Tinto, apologised for blowing up the 4600-year-Old Juukan Gorge Caves in Australia. I have found no offer of compensation to the owners.

May 25 – George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis, USA, for a $20 debt. Protests spread out around the world. It resulted in some interesting conversations here in New Zealand for me. The first issue that makes this murder is, that the matter is a civil one. The police do not need to get involved, beyond taking the name and personal details and passing them back to the person making the allegation. Secondly, even if this is NOT a civil matter, the police should not be killing a member of the public for $20 (even the cheapest killer for hire charges more than that). The only comeback I got was that Floyd was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill ([a] This bill passes out of the story after his death, so I suspect the accusation was a false one; and [b] even if it is true, this is not evidence that he knew, at the time, the bill was counterfeit. This is something for a jury, not a policeman, to decide; [c] I may be wrong, but I don’t think passing a counterfeit bill is punishable by death in Minneapolis). At every stage of their interaction with Floyd, the Police were working outside what should be acceptable behaviour in a civil society.

May 28 – Ladislas Ntaganzwa was sentenced to life imprisonment for orchestrating the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people in the Rwandan genocide. Although I am philosophically against the death penalty, I am also against this sentence. I believe, in cases like this, the only just outcome is for the crime to be visited on the criminal, thus putting a full stop on the whole event. It is not enough for the criminal to be punished; the disgust of society for the crime must also be expressed (in the sense that, if Ladislas is happy about what he did, then, in order to be consistent, he must also be happy with what is done to him).

June

June 2 – A class action suit was filed against Google and Alphabet Inc. claiming these companies violated users’ privacy rights by tracking them in the software program, Chrome’s, incognito mode.

June 3 – British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced a pathway to emigration would be available to Hong Kong residents should China impose its new security laws on the country.

Russian Premiere, Vladimir Putin, declared a state of emergency after an oil leak into the Ambarnava River.

SpaceX launched a further 60 Starlink satellites to add to the pollution encircling the earth.

June 6 – Rallies were held around the world protesting the case of George Floyd.

June 15 – Turkish and Iranian forces launched air and artillery strikes against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party.

June 17 – Turkey launched a land attack on the Kurdistan Worker’s Party.

June 28 – Worldwide cases of Covid-19 reach 10 million.

June 30 – China passed the Hong Kong National Security Law. This allowed China to crack down on criticism of the Beijing government at home... and abroad. Only a weak government supposes it is above criticism.

July

July 1 – In a completely fair and unrigged referendum, Russian voters backed a constitutional amendment that allowed for Vladimir Putin to remain in power for a further 12 years. (Nothing to see here, folks. Move along!).

July 2 – A landslide at a mine in Myanmar killed 174 people.

July 7 – Protests broke out around Bulgaria to remove the present government.

Protests erupted in Serbia against the strict lockdown rules to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

July 10 – At least 180 bodies were found in a mass grave in Djibo, Burkina Faso. It is suspected government forces have amused themselves with a few extrajudicial slaughters.

July 12 – China reported there are 141 dead or missing from floods since June.

July 19 – The Brahmaputra River flooded. 189 people were killed and 4 million made homeless in India and Nepal.

August

August 1 - The first commercial nuclear power plant in the Arab world became operational at Barakah, United Arabs Emirate.

August 4 – Lebanon declared a two-week State of Emergency after two explosions of unsafely stored Ammonium Nitrate exploded in Beirut. The explosions killed 220 people, thousands were injured, the port was severely damaged, and an estimated 300 000 people were made homeless.

August 7 – Air India Express Flight 3344 crashed near Calicut Airport, Kerala, India. 19 people were killed.

August 9 – Incumbent President, Alexander Lukashenko, of Belarus, declared himself the election victor. Opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, rejected the results and protests break out. President Donald Trump of the USA took notes.

August 10 – Confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection around the world reached 20 million.

August 11 – Among general world-wide scepticism, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia had created the first Covid vaccine.

August 13 – Israel and the United Arabs Emirates decided to normalise relations.

August 15 – The Japanese cargo ship, Wakashiro, which had stranded on a reef the previous month, finally split in half. 1 000 tonnes of oil were spilt into the ocean, creating the largest environmental disaster in the history of Mauritius.

August 25 – Africa was declared to be free of wild Polio. It is the second virus to be eliminated from the continent.

September

September 3 – In the largest find of Mammoth bones to date, 200 Mammoth and 30 other animals were unearthed at a construction site in Mexico City.

The Sudanese Prime Minister and the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement-North signed an agreement for Sudan to become a secular State.

September 4 – The La Linea highway tunnel was opened in Columbia, South America, after 14 years of construction. It is the longest road tunnel in South America.

Kosovo and Serbia normalised their relationship.

Bahrain and Israel agreed to normalise their relationship.

September 14 – The Royal Astronomical Society in Britain announced that it had detected phosphine in the atmosphere of the planet Venus. This gas is a strong indicator of the presence of microbial life.

Thawing of the permafrost in Siberia uncovered the first perfectly preserved specimen of a cave bear.

September 16 – The United Nations Human Rights Council formally accused the Venezuelan Government of Human Rights abuses including murder, torture and violence against political opposition.

September 17 – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom rejected China’s claim to the South China Sea.

Covid-19 infections reached 30 million.

September 19 – A 1634 edition of The Two Noblemen by William Shakespeare was discovered in Salamanca, Spain. It is believed to be the oldest copy of any of his works in the country.

September 19 – The Covid death toll passed one million. The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse party like its 1347.

October

October 1 – The EU started legal action against the UK, claiming that international law has been breached by overriding sections of the Brexit agreement.

October 5 – In Kyrgyzstan, massive protests broke out over claims that the election was unfair. President Donald Trump of the USA watched with renewed interest.

October 15 – President Sooronbay Jeenbekov of Kyrgyzstan resigned. President Donald Trump of the USA loses all interest in what he thinks of as a shithole country.

October 17 – Labour wins the New Zealand General Election. Jacinda Ardern began a second term as Prime Minister.

October 19 – World Covid-19 cases reached 40 million.

October 20 – The OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft touched down on Bennu, an asteroid, and retrieved samples (which will begin to be analysed when the probe returns to Earth in 2023).

October 23 – The Falklands Islands were declared free of land mines.

Israel and Sudan agree to normalise relations.

October 26 – NASA confirmed molecular water had been discovered on the sunlight side of the moon.

October 29 – 140 refugee migrants drowned off the coast of Senegal in an attempt to reach the Canary Islands.

October 30 – Turkey and Greece were hit by 7.0 magnitude earthquake. At least 81 people were killed and 1 000 injured.

October 31 – Typhoon Goni slammed into the Philippines to make it the strongest land-falling Typhoon in history. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.

November

November 1 – It is suspected the Oromo Liberation Army have killed 54 women, children and elderly in Ethiopia.

November 4 – The USA formally exited from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

November 7 – Joe Biden was elected President of the USA.

November 8 – Worldwide Covid-19 cases reached 50 million.

November 11 – The Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine is proved to be 92% effective (according to interim test results).

November 15 – The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed by 15 Asia-Pacific nations to become the world’s largest Free Trade block and encompassing a third of the world’s population.

November 16 – the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine is proved to be 94.5% effective (but requires ultra-cold storage).

November 19 – The BioNTech Covid-19m vaccine is proved to be 95% effective.

The Brereton Report into Australian war crimes in Afghanistan was released.

November 22 – The USA withdrew from the Treaty on Open Skies.

November 23 – The AZD1222 Covid-19 vaccine is proved to be 70% effective. This can be boosted to 90% if two doses are given.

November 24 – Former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, began his trial for corruption.

November 25 – Worldwide Covid cases reached 60 million.

November 26 – The largest General Strike in world history began as farmers in India protested against the recession and austerity measures used to combat Covid-19 (Covid-19 and the recession laughed at the farmers).

November 27 – Mohsen Fakhruzadeh, a nuclear scientist, was assassinated in Tehran, Iran.

November 28 – Boko Haram members killed at least 43 people on a farm in Jere, Nigeria.

November 30 – As part of their protest, 200 000 farmers marched on Delhi, India.

Artificial Intelligence machine AlphaFold solved the mystery of protein folding.

December

December 2 – The UK approved the use of BNT162b2 Covid-19 vaccine, becoming the first in the world to do so.

December 5 – Trying not to be outdone, Russia approved a mass vaccination of the Sputnik V vaccine in Russia.

December 8 – China and Nepal finally agreed on Mount Everest’s height.

A report was released on the Christchurch (New Zealand) Massacre from the previous year.

December 10 – Israel and Morocco normalised diplomatic relations.

December 12 – Worldwide Covid-19 cases reached 70 million.

Israel and Bhutan normalised relations.

December 14 – The USA and Canada began mass vaccinations.

December 15 – The International Criminal Court accused the Philippines of crimes against humanity in its war on drugs.

December 20 – A highly infectious and new strain of Covid-19 started making the rounds in Europe.

December 21 – First case of Covid-19 was found in Antarctica.

December 24 – The UK and the EU agreed to a comprehensive Free Trade agreement (the EU you have, when you don’t want the EU, but need them, in other words).

December 17 – Covid-19 cases worldwide exceeded 70 million.

Africa

I am aware that Africa is a continent and not a country. Adu is a film that severely tests the system I use to assign films to countries. It is a Spanish film. It starts in Melilla, the Spanish border with Africa and then takes the story through several African nations (Cameroon, Mauritania) before returning to the African side of Melilla. The languages spoken are French, English and Spanish, and it was filmed in the Republic of Benin.

History

February 14 – First reported case Of Covid-19 in Africa (in Egypt)

May13 – Lesotho, the last Covid free state in Africa, recorded its first case.

May 26 – Community transmission was recorded.

As Adu was shot in Benin, here is the history for that country...

March 16 – First recorded case.

April 18 - 35 confirmed cases.

December – Cases: 3 251. Deaths: 44. Fatality Rate: 1.35%

Africa

Cases: 3 710 916. Deaths: 96 292. Fatality Rate: 2.59% (as of February 2021)

Adu

Director: Salvador Cado    Script: Alejandro Hernandez

DOP: Sergi Vilanova Claudin    Editor: Jaime Collis

Music: Roque Baños

Actors: Luis Tosar, Álvaro Cervantes, Anna Castillo, Moustapha Oumarou, Miguel Fernández, Jesús Carroza

Adu is three stories for the price of one.

The film opens on the border at Melilla. Refugees are climbing the fence and the police are trying to keep them out. One of the refugees becomes entangled in the barbed wire. He struggles when a policeman tries to help him; seeing this, the other refugees also begin to attack. The policeman hits the refugee, who drops head first onto the concrete below. This incident leads to the three policemen being investigated. Javi is presented as the one with a conscience. The other two insist on sticking to their story which is, as they say, the truth. Javi is worried because it is not ALL the truth.

In Cameroon, eight-year-old Adu, and his sister, witness some elephant poaching. The poachers murder their mother, and the siblings flee, hoping to get to Spain where their father lives. Adu is separated from his sister and finds himself in Mauritania, where he is picked up to be sent to an orphanage. Fortunately, he makes friends with Massar, a teenager who is also hoping to make it to Spain. He has been funding his journey through prostitution with truck drivers. Massar knows enough lock picking tricks to get out of the police van and make a run for it.

After further adventures they make it to Melilla. Freedom is on the other side. It is hinted that Massar has contracted AIDS. He knows the two of them can’t cross the barbed wire. Many try and none succeed. He comes up with a plan to swim to the other side on rubber tires. This only brings them to the attention of the Spanish coastguard. Javi is working there on this night.

The third story is a little The Bicycle Thieves (1948) and a little bit Winchester ‘73 (1950). In fleeing from the poachers, Adu and his sister leave their bicycle behind. Miguel is a tax-exiled Spaniard using his money to help Cameroon against the poachers. He, and his team, arrive too late to prevent the slaughter, but discover the bicycle. Miguel keeps the bike and sells it to his estranged daughter. Estrangement seems to be his story, as the Cameroon authorities are sick and tired of his white man ways (This appears first in the scene where donating the elephant flesh to the local villagers is discussed. Miguel is against it. He then has a hissy fit when the workers celebrate one of their number’s birthday. In this sequence it is obvious he thinks he is the boss white man and they have to remind him he is only an advisor). His daughter, Anna, arrives in Cameroon, sent there to help her dry out and get away from the Madrid drug scene. The bicycle accompanies her on her return to Spain at Melilla, as Miguel continues his solitary exile in another African country.

I would agree with critics that the three stories don’t quite connect (not in an emotionally satisfying way, at least). I would also add that this doesn’t matter. Real life doesn’t interconnect in a satisfying way. The story is about Africa – what forces people to become refugees, and how they are treated along the way. Miguel is as much a refugee as anyone else in the picture. Because he is white (and rich) he gets preferential treatment. Javi and his friends get to feel the life of the refugee as they are ostracised by people who have no idea what it is they actually do (as the senior officer remarks – the border isn’t there to stop them coming in; it’s to turn them around and tell them to sort out their own problems first. He does this with the curious analogy, that, if France had turned the Spanish refugees back at its border, then General Franco wouldn’t have been allowed to die peacefully in his bed. Without doing a deep dive into Spanish history, I heard him say this and understood that he really doesn’t understand the situations of current Africa OR historic Spain).

The link between the three stories is the elephants. These seem to represent Africa, killed for its products by uncontrollable forces, and unable to defend itself. It is the poachers that send Adu on his quest for a better life. A hollowed out plastic tusk that Miguel’s daughter plans to smuggle drugs into Spain with is her connection (and, to spotlight the unconnectedness of things, Javi and his friends have no connection with elephants [beyond checking for contraband at the border]. Their connection is as imperialists trying to control Africa).

Argentina

History

March 3 – First confirmed case. A man from Italy.

March 5 – Second confirmed case. A man recently returned from Italy

March 7 – First confirmed death (which was only discovered post-mortem).

March 11 – The government announced a mandatory quarantine on all travellers entering the country from China, South Korea, Japan, Iran, the USA, and Europe.

March 12 – First confirmed cases of local transmission.

Mid-March – The government announced the construction of eight emergency hospitals to deal with the outbreak. Argentina, at this time. also had to deal with outbreaks of Dengue fever and measles.

March 16 – Tierra Del Fuego became the first province put into lockdown.

March 19 – A nation-wide lockdown was announced. This was successively extended until it reached totality on April 25.

March 23 – The Ministry of Health reported community transmission of the disease was increasing.

April 17 – The blood plasma of recovered patients was used to see if it carried antibodies that might help healthy people fight the disease.

April 25 – The government announced major cities would stay under lockdown until May 10.

May 10 – The Greater Buenos Aires region had its lockdown extended to June 28 (in a progression of announcements. This policy of announcing lockdowns and then progressively pushing the end date back continued throughout the year).

May 31 – The government announced efforts to create a Covid-19 vaccine.

October 20 – The government confirmed over one million positive cases (becoming the second country in South America to achieve this feat and the fifth country in the world).

December 22 – Supplies of the Russian developed Sputnik V vaccine arrived in the country.

As of February 1, 2021, there have been 1 933, 836 confirmed cases of the corona virus and 48 249 deaths. Fatality rate: 2.49%

El Cazador (Young Hunter)

Director, Script & Editor: Marco Berger

DOP: Mariano De Rosa

Music: Pedro Irusta

Actors: Juan Pablo Cestaro, Juan Barberini, Patricio Rodriguez

I’m not sure what the director is trying to say with the nature imagery in this film (bees and honey might have been appropriate but they do not appear in the story). There is always a faintly threatening element to their appearance as if we have wandered into the threatening forest of a fairy tale.

A 15-year-old teen, prophetically named Ezequiel, goes to a skateboard park. Another, older teen, Mono gives him a come-hither look. They soon become friends... and lovers. Then the older teen disappears... to be replaced by a man with some compromising footage of passionate love-making. Mono was this man’s Judas goat – tempting boys into sexual experimentation that would be secretly taped for sale on the dark web. Mono is now too old to attract the talent the man requires. He blackmails Ezequiel into searching for new material.

Feeling betrayed, Ezequiel also realises, as a closeted gay, his choices are few. He searches the skateboard parks until he finds a 14-year-old fatherless boy desperate for love and affirmation of his gay identity. Ezequiel falls in love. This puts him in a moral dilemma. Does he betray this love (as was done to him) to protect his secret, or reveal his betrayal (and perhaps lose his lover)?

One could classify this as a romantic thriller – which it is not. It takes half of the film to get the hero seduced (at least it feels that way). The touchstone seems to be late-fifties Hitchcock – exploring sexual issues and obsessions through a thriller format (and, like this period Hitchcock, the finale is an arbitrary end point, not a wrap up of all that has gone before).

A visual tease (that helps ratchet up the tension) is that we never see the cell phone messages that are integral to the plot. We only see characters reactions to them.

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Fangio: El Hombre Qui Domaba Las Maquinas

(A Life Of Speed: The Juan Manuel Fangio Story)

Director: Francisco Macri    Script: Rodrigo H. Vila

Script & Editor: Luciano Orgillo

DOP: Daniel Ortega

Actors: Juan Manuel Fangio, Fernando Alonso, Jackie Stewart, Mika Häkkinen, Toto Wolff, Alain Prost

The godfather of Formula One, Juan Fangio, wanted to be a car mechanic. That is how this documentary begins as it explores an extraordinary life. It uses talking head interviews with Fangio and the people who knew and raced against him. The end result, of course, uses multiple formats from film to video.

My one complaint is that the film only really comes alive in footage of Fangio discussing racing strategy and tactics during various races. There is not nearly enough of this in the film.

Driver,

Juan Manuel Fangio

Was born on June 24, 1911, in Balcarce, Argentina, and he died in 1995.

El Chueco (the bowlegged) abandoned his school career to become an auto mechanic. In 1938, he drove in his first race. In 1940 he raced in the Turismo Carretera, and also won the Grand Prix International Championship. He then left to race in Europe.

Fangio won the World Championship of Drivers five times (a record that was only broken 46 years later). He also raced in four different teams (as an F1 driver, he still remains the only driver to win in more than 2 different teams).

Australia

History

January 25 – First reported case of Covid.

March - A Human Biosecurity emergency declared was declared by the Australian Federal government.

March 10 – 100th case reported.

March 20 – The Australian border was closed to all non-Australian citizens.

March 21 – Social distancing rules were introduced. These did not apply to businesses such as construction, manufacturing, or retail.

March 22 – 350 infections per day recorded.

End of April – 20 infections recorded per day.

May - Second wave of Covid infection begins.

June - Third wave of infection begins.

June 6 – Queensland and Western Australia reported no new infections for the previous 24 hours.

June 20 – The Victorian Government announced a tightening of restrictions due to a spike in the infection rate.

June 27 – Western Australia announced a move to Phase 4, a loosening of restrictions. Western Australia had the most relaxed restrictions at this time.

August 6 – 11 350 000 cases of Covid infection reported.

October 26 – official end of second wave. Victoria reported 0 new