With thanks to Steve at Airserv for permission to use his incredible photo (www.airserv.co.za).
Now in its 35th year, DIFF has grown to encompass two additional genre festivals, the Wavescape Surf Film Festival and the Africa Wild Talk Wildlife Film Festival, as well as the Durban FilmMart, which has become crucial to the burgeoning South African film scene, and Talents Durban, a collaboration with the Berlinale Talents programme of the Berlinale Film Festival.
Twitch founder and editor Todd Brown will be in attendance, and he's already highlighted several films that will be screening: Hard To Get (South Africa), a slick crime romance; Shield And Spear (South Africa), a documentary examining integration through art; Coz Of Moni 2: Fokn Revenge (Ghana), a crime rap musical; and Joe Bullet (1971 South Africa), banned by the Apartheid government and finally restored to its glory.
Watch this space for more news about the festival, and reviews of the best new films coming out of South Africa.
Check out DIFF's full schedule here.
Further information about other festival activities:
Wavescape Surf Film Festival
Wild Talk Africa
Durban FilmMart
Official Trailer Reel of the 35th Durban International Film Festival 2014.
Fatherland
Directed by Tarryn Crossman
A controversial and intimate coming-of-age story, Fatherland relates the experiences of three white Afrikaans boys who spend their summer holidays doing basic military training in the style of the Apartheid-era SADF, as their fathers would have done. The children participate in a gruelling transformation that tests their values, beliefs and identity. Each boy has his own, often conflicted perspectives as to whether they should be questioning at all. At first, the goal of the ‘Kommandokorps’ boot camp appears to be simply that of fitness and camaraderie, but it soon reveals itself to be part of a much more frightening project of reconditioning the next generation of Afrikaners to uphold the nationalism of their predecessors.
Cold Harbour
Directed by Carey McKenzie
When a body washes up on a beach in what looks like a gang-related turf-war murder, Khayelitsha policeman Sizwe Mia sees his chance to make detective. But the deeper he digs, the thicker the conspiracy. Unsure of who to trust, Sizwe must fight to stay on the right side of a law he believes in and maintain his integrity in a world that does not reward it. Atmospherically shot, Cold Harbour is a bleak crime drama rooted in the moral ambiguities of crime, corruption and the complex loyalties arising out of South Africa’s conflict-ridden historical legacy. World premiere.
Love The One You Love
Directed by Jenna Cato Bass
Love The One You Love focuses on the state of love at the southernmost tip of contemporary South Africa through the romances of a number of Cape Town couples. Following a sex-line operator, a dog handler and a computer technician as they begin to wonder whether their romantic relationships are being manufactured as a bizarre conspiracy in which their family, friends and as-yet-unidentified forces are implicated, Love The One You Love is a thoughtprovoking meditation on ‘the ideals we hold too sacred: love, happiness and the New South Africa; the pursuit of which makes truth impossible’. World premiere.
1994: The Bloody Miracle
Directed by Meg Rickards and Bert Haisma
As South Africa celebrates its 20th anniversary of the advent of democracy in 1994, it’s difficult to believe the ‘Mandela miracle’ nearly didn’t happen. In an orgy of countrywide violence, some were intent on derailing the first free elections. Now, for the first time, those responsible for countless deaths and widespread mayhem explain how they nearly brought South Africa to its knees. 1994 – The Bloody Miracle is a chilling look at what these hard men did to thwart democracy, and at how they have now made an uneasy peace with the ‘Rainbow Nation’ in their own different ways." THIS FILM IS AVAILABLE ON DVD AT www.loot.co.za and www.raru.co.za.
I, Afrikaner
Directed by Annalet Steenkamp
Filmed over nine years, I, Afrikaner is a difficult and intensely personal portrait of a family trapped in unresolvable conflicts with the changing world around them. Exploring the attitudes, experiences and emotions of four generations of ‘boere’ as they forge a future in an uncertain landscape, the film negotiates deftly, and with immense subtlety, issues of whiteness in rural post-apartheid South Africa. Each generational character is representative of an era – past, present or future. Set against the context of the highly contentious issue of land ownership, the film depicts both a literal and figurative battle for ownership of space.
The Last Boers Of Patagonia (The Boers At The End Of The World
Directed by Richard Gregory
The Last Boers of Patagonia is a portrait of an isolated culture facing extinction, far from the land of their forefathers. Refusing to bow to the Union Jack after losing the Anglo Boer war, 600 Afrikaans families boarded ships between 1902 and 1908 and set sail for the far side of the world to start a new life. Today, most of the townsfolk have now assimilated with the Argentine population, retaining little of the culture of their ancestors. However, there is still a handful of the eldest inhabitants who speak Afrikaans every day, and through whom questions of identity, integration, and erosion of culture are explored.
Plot For Peace
Directed by Mandy Jacobson and Carlos Agullo
A character-driven historical thriller about the demise of apartheid, Plot for Peace starts with the mid-1980s, when township violence in South Africa raged and one of the Cold War’s most vicious proxy conflicts devastated Angola. Jean-Yves Ollivier, a foreign commodity trader with connections to all stakeholders in the region, found himself to be the lifeline for top-secret contacts, becoming instrumental in ending Apartheid. In the style of John LeCarré, the film relates how South Africa and the frontline states came out of the Cold War long before the Berlin Wall crumbled. First-hand accounts from such figures as Thabo Mbeki, Joachim Chissano, Denis Sassou Nguesso, ‘Pik’ Botha, and Winnie Mandela expose the secret dealings between the last tenants of apartheid and the Marxist forces at South Africa’s borders. African premiere.
PLOT FOR PEACE Official Trailer - English from Indelible Media on Vimeo.
Future Sounds Of Mzansi
Directed by Spoek Mathambo and Lebogang Rasethaba
Directed by performance artist Spoek Mathambo and filmmaker Lebogang Rasethaba, Future Sounds of Mzansi aims to explore, express, and interrogate South Africa’s cultural landscape through the vehicle of electronic music. The film engages with a potent range of pioneers sculpting the sound of things to come, including Aero Manyelo, Black Coffee, Christian Tiger School, Felix Laband, John Wizards, Sibot, DJ Spoko and Zaki Ibrahim, to name a few. We swim in the sounds of deep house, glitch hop, sghubu sapitori, durban qhum, dubstep and shangaan electro. In a country still steeped in poverty, crime, and injustice, young South Africans party like their lives depend on it. The groove is thick and infectious and the future looks blindingly beautiful. World premiere.