The 45th annual Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) is upon us. From the 18th to the 28th of July 2024, the coastal city of Durban transforms into a global arena, attracting film-makers and industry leaders from all around the world. This year DIFF promises not only a premier programme but also greater access, expanding its footprint to include screening venues such as Ster Kinekor, Gateway, and Nu Metro Pavilion, while once again returning to Suncoast CineCentre and their outreach venues.

Student Films

DIFF received 478 submissions, from which twenty-one films have been officially selected to premiere at DIFF and compete for the Best Student Film and Best South African Student Film awards.

“The future of film is in good hands and these young filmmakers are not afraid to delve into the most highly charged social dilemmas of our time”, says Andrea Voges, Festival Manager and Head of Programming.

The six films by South African students, Cloud Line, Dirt, Fisantekraal, Rebooting Memory, Warm and Where's the Chicken? represent a broad variety of universal themes with the common thread of reflecting a uniquely South African perspective. Fisantekraal gives a unique vantage point of the titular area not far from Durbanville, Cape Town. While the images are cinematically beautiful the end of the film and the harsh reality faced by people living there are less so. The jarring contrast between them results in an engaging and provocative film. Different aspects of grief and ways of mourning are the focus of two local films.

Short Films

Twenty-six short films will compete for the Best Short Film (Oscar Qualifying) and the Best South African Short award in the 45th edition of the Durban Internal Film Festival shorts programme this year. The films offer everything from intimate personal relationships to the broad political landscape of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement in Iran. They feature places familiar and close to home to far-flung Mars and everything in between.

Films with a focus on family relationships include A Thousand Odd Days where a young man attempts to reconcile with his estranged mother. Their relationship is profoundly affected by previous trauma that she has endured, and he must make sense of her as a person before he can relate to her as his mother. The theme of strong familial bonds is echoed in Tomorrow as a ten-year-old boy with the help of a stray dog goes in search of life-saving treatment for his ailing father. The extreme lengths a courageous teenager goes to protect his mother in Metallic Taste are as inspirational. Set against the background of war this poignant portrait delivers a visceral punch and makes the brutal and impossible choices made in times of conflict very human. Intergenerational violence shatters a young man’s future even as he tries to escape his personal violent history in Middle of Somewhere.

Documentaries

Documentaries from South Africa, Bhutan, France, Hungary, Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and the USA, to name a few, including two films straight from Sundance and Berlinale are included in the programme for the 45th edition of the Durban International Film Festival.

“The documentary programme at DIFF always affords a wide-ranging view of the world and interrogates our preconceived ideas of people and places. In addition to films from differentparts of the globe, the South African view is often as challenging and offers a differentperspective on complex South African situations”, says Andrea Voges.

South African documentary Banned follows the story of the first film to feature an all-African cast, Joe Bullet, which was banned shortly after its release in 1973. Diana Keam’s intimate Don’t Be Late for My Funeral focuses on the personal story of her relationship with her retired domestic worker, Margaret Bogopa Matlala. This intimate portrayal fills in the fine detail sketched by Moore’s broad brushstrokes.

The Opening and Closing night films will be South African documentaries.

Features

A sense of place is a common feature in many of the films on offer at DIFF this year.

“For lovers of life and observers of humanity, DIFF affords a window on the world, the complexities of relationships between people, and the consequences of the broken ties between nations”, says Andrea Voges.

The re-release of the groundbreaking City of God celebrates the film’s 21st anniversary. This intimate portrayal of the favelas of the poverty-stricken Rio neighbourhood, Cidade de Deus, establishes Rio as character in the film and adds a gritty intensity to this classic. The Mongolian film City of Wind follows the life of a seventeen-year-old shaman as he juggles his spiritual responsibilities with his school work. The girl sat a school in the Himalayas wrestle with their growing sexual awareness in Girls Will Be Girls, which won the Audience Choice Award at Sundance. Other features from Sundance are Malu and How to Have Sex, the latter compassionately looks at sex, friendship, and consent in the painfully familiar portrait of young adulthood.

Brazilian Focus

The critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning film, City of God, which premiered in 2002 at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the 2003 Oscars, has recently been restored and is being re-released worldwide. The African premiere of the festival will take place at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) in July.

City of God is ground-breaking in its realistic and unflinching portrayal of the stranglehold that gangs had over life in the favelas of Brazil. It is a powerful and unfiltered story about aworld of contrasts, where hope and despair coexist. The South African premiere at DIFF is part of a two-year collaboration between the Durban International Film Festival and the Mostra de Cinemas Africanos (Brazil African Film Festival). The BRICS-aligned partnership is supported by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS).

Ana Camila Esteves, the director of Mostra de Cinemas Africanos, sees this as a wonderful opportunity to revisit the acclaimed Brazilian film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, twelve years after its release. She highlights the significance of this moment, "especially considering how popular the film became in different parts of Africa." Esteves believes it is an ideal time to reflect on City of God and the contemporary Brazilian cinema selections at DIFF, enabling audiences to understand the evolution of Brazilian audiovisual storytelling.

French Focus

Films featured at the Oscars and leading global film festivals such as Berlinale, Cannes, and Venice will be part of the French focus at the 45th Durban International Film Festival. The programme will include the documentaries, Dahomey, Coconut Head Generation, and Four Daughters made by filmmakers who hail from Paris, Kinshasa, and Tunisia. The project is supported by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the French Institute, with IFAS and Alliance française in Durban.

For more information on the Durban International Film Festival visit https://ccadiff.ukzn.ac.za and download the full festival programme.

Written by Lex LaFoy with film content provided by the Centre For Creative Arts (CCA) at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN).