High opera is reinvigorated with the street-level energies of South African townships (and the talents of South African artists) in this jubilant film, winner of the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival. The radiant Pauline Malefane is Carmen, a sensual, all-powerful femme fatale who drags a chain of smitten lovers in her wake, but who is lured into an affair with the one man with the willpower to resist her charms: an officer of the law. If the plot sounds familiar, it should: it's Georges Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen, even if it is sung in Xhosa and takes place in modern-day Cape Town. Originally adapted for the stage by director Mark Dornford-May, this joyous synthesis of the nineteenth-century European canon and twenty-first-century African talent features members of the internationally acclaimed lyric theater company Dimpho Di Kopane, with Malefane its radiant star.

Join us after the film for a discussion with Pauline Malefane, facilitated by Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o. This program is offered in conjunction with the Conference on African and Afro-Caribbean Performance presented by the UC Berkeley Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, September 26 through 28. For information, visit www.berkeleytdps.org. Paulin Malefane's artist residency is supported by Consortium for the Arts at UC Berkeley and the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts.