Makibefo

DVD Mailorder  |  DVD-5  |  PAL 4:3  |  Region: free  |  73 min.  |  1999  |  Malagasy, English  |  Subtitles: german, english, spanish, french, portugues  |  FSK: 12

Not really a short film, but sometimes we make exceptions.
For Makibefo, based on William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", Alexander Abela decided to break away from the conventions contemporary filmmakers take for granted. Instead, he chose to work under similar conditions as those of the early silent film period and concentrate entirely on the language of pictures.

The challenge ahead therefore was to capture the essence of a play such as Macbeth not through Shakespeare’s dialogues but through the film’s imagery.
As location for this project Abela chose Faux-Cap, an isolated community of Antandroy fishermen at the southernmost tip of the island. It was to these people — most of whom had never seen a film before, let alone a television — that Alexander suggested devising Makibefo: The tale of a man’s quest for power through bloody ambition. With limited technical resources the team would embrace William Shakespeare’s famous ‘Scottish play’ and incorporate it into the Antandroy’s very own cultural history.

Makibefo by Alexander Abela | UK | 1999 | 73 min

Press Ratings

In the wide universe of Shakespearean adaptations, few are more distinctive than Alexander Abela’s Makibefo.  (Robert Koehler, Variety)

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Makibefo was added to our catalog on Tuesday 13 January, 2009.