A Dry White Season

Director: Euzhan Palcy

1989 / 106min / 35mm

Adapted from South African André Brink’s novel of the same name, Palcy’s fierce drama—the first Hollywood studio film directed by a Black woman (and only her second feature)—stars Donald Sutherland as a schoolteacher at a whites-only school in mid-1970s South Africa who, following the brutal beating of his gardener’s (Winston Ntshona) activist son by the police, finds himself increasingly opposed to fighting the apartheid system, enlisting the aide of sympathetic journalist Susan Sarandon and anti-apartheid lawyer Marlon Brando, returning to the screen for the first time in a decade with focus and fiery commitment. Impressed by Palcy's commitment to human rights, Brando originally wanted to work for free but had to accept the union rate. “First-rate agitprop about the ruthlessness of South African apartheid… The relentless plot is effectively set up and expertly pursued.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader

Introduction by filmmaker Euzhan Palcy on Friday, April 4th