Thomas Mogotlane in Mapantsula.
The University of KwaZulu Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts will present the 44th edition of the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) from Thursday July 20 to Sunday July 30 at Suncoast CineCentre.
The festival will showcase 90 films from 54 countries including Banel and Adama, Omen and The Mother of All Lies, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, as well as Christian Petzold’s Afire, which won Berlinale’s Silver Bear. Winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, A Thousand and One and the second documentary ever to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, All the Beauty and Bloodshed, are some of the films that will premiere at the festival.
The festival programme celebrates What the Soil Remembers, a South African documentary that won the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in February. The film tells of the trauma of uprooted communities during Apartheid. City of Ashes by Sheetal Magan presents a dystopian Johannesburg in the near future of 2035. And Malusi Bengu’s Vinyl on Bones explores music as a healing tool and the cost of this alchemy to the healer.
The restored South African film Mapantsula by Oliver Schmitz, which had its world premiere in February, in Berlinale’s classic section, will make its African premiere in Durban during the festival. The original Mapantsula was the first anti-apartheid film that had its premiere screening at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival after the Apartheid government had banned the film.
The 6th edition of isiPhethu, a developmental programme that includes the isiZulu Scriptwriting Workshop, Industry Programme, and screenings in community centres will also take place during DIFF. The 2nd International Student Film Festival will showcase 30 student films from all over the world, at the KwaZulu-Natal Society for the Arts (KZNSA) free of charge.
The programme is available on cca.ukzn.ac.za. To stay up to date, follow #DIFF2023 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.