Durban film festival to showcase top films

Cape Town – The 32nd Durban International film festival opens on 21 July with the premiere of Otelo Burning, a local surf movie set in Durban.

This year more than 250 screenings will be showcased as part of South Africa’s oldest film festival, which will run until 31 July.

Director Sara Blecher’s Otelo Burning, is set in the late 80s and centres around a group of young men from the Durban Township Lamontville who escape the political violence of the time through surfing. Jafta Mamabolo, who was the young Kunene in the gangster movie Jerusalema, plays the lead role.

Some of the latest South African films will be screened for the first time locally at this festival.

Among these films is Cape Town director Oliver Hermanus’s Skoonheid, which received the Queer Palm at the Cannes film festival in May and also competed in the Un Certain Regard category.

It will also be the first screening of Johannesburg director Charlie Vundla’s How to Steal 2 Million, as well as Damir Radonic’s Taka Takata in which features comedian Trevor Noah. Zuko Nodada’s The Dream will also be screened.

FEATURE: SA shines on the big screen

Black Butterflies, a drama about the late Afrikaans poet Ingrid Jonker by Dutch director Paula van der Oest will screen for the first time in South Africa. It was filmed in Cape Town last year.

Six films of the late Indian director Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) is part of the festival’s special focus on his work.

Canada’s strong film year will also be on show. Five feature films, including Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar nominated Incendi - a sensitive look at the Middle East and a family’s dark secrets. Maxime Giroux’ coming of age story Jo for Jonathan will also be shown as well as Ed Gass-Donnelly’s Small Town Murder Songs about a retired policeman who gets involved in a murder. Three Canadian documentaries will add to the country’s repertoire at the festival.

Africa is also represented by Nigeria’s Restless City by Andrew Donsunmu as well as Justin Chadwick’s The First Grader, from Kenya, about an old man who enrolls him self in first grade.

A talent campus, workshops and discussions are also included in the programme as well as the second Durban film market.