Charles Mudede on War Witch

I have not yet seen War Witch, AKA Rebelle, reviewed here by The Stranger's Charles Mudede, but I too am growing tired of the Africans-with-machetes-and-machine-guns movie; every film I've seen set in Africa in the last few years has had machetes and machine guns aplenty, including some very good ones, like Claire Denis' White Material -- though Mudede obligingly overlooked the machetes and machine guns in that case, saying (here) that it "is a sin to miss anything made by Denis. A sin against the gods of cinema."

While not much of my writing is likely to impress someone as erudite and sophisticated as Mudede, I think he was quite pleasantly surprised when I began our interview about Police Beat, published in CineAction a few years ago, by asking him if he intended the story to show one African's descent into the "heart of whiteness." I'm still rather proud of that question (and still a big fan of Police Beat). You can read that interview online here, if you're curious (though it's been published there without the consent or participation of either CineAction or myself, so if you're REALLY interested, order a back issue! It's number 72).