"Hotstuff" now "Catch-a-Fire'

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Phillip Noyce's Hotstuff, a stirring South African political drama based on the true story of Patrick Chamusso, an Average Joe laborer who became radicalized under the boot of apartheid in the early 1980s, is now being called Catch-a-Fire, according to a press release sent out by Noyce's office about a filmmaking workshop that Noyce will hold for budding East African filmmakers in mid-August. One presumes that Hotstuff, a term used by an anti-terrorist Afrikaner policeman (Tim Robbins ) to describe Chamusso (Derek Luke), was dumped because of the sexual connotation. Catch-a-Fire will be released via Focus Features in October, and will most likely debut at the Toronto Film Festival.

comment #1

Chris Molanphy says ...

Sometimes a new title is just better. 'Catch a Fire' (I would prefer it without the hyphens, but whatever) will have good associations with music fans, as it's both the title of a beloved album by Bob Marley – now considered a kind of spiritual leader in Africa – and an allusion to a lyric in Peter Gabriel's anti-apartheid anthem "Biko" ("You can blow out a candle / But you can't blow out a fire/ Once the flame begins to catch / The wind will blow it higher").

comment #2

Daniel Zelter says ...

Hotstuff might be generic enough to be copyrighted.

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