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Baby Mamas[/caption]
This year’s 2018 Durban International Film Festival will offer a focused fare of 180 features films, documentaries, and shorts, along with an insightful industry program that includes Isisphethu for emerging and micro-budget filmmakers, the 11th Talents Durban, in partnership with Berlinale Talents, for pre-selected, semi-established filmmakers as well as the co-production and finance forum the 9th Durban FilmMart, the festival’s partner program with the Durban Film Office.
Opening the festival is the first feature film from South African director Jerome Pikwane, the horror flick
The Tokoloshe. The LGTBI love-story
Rafiki, directed by Kenyan Wanuri Kahiu, will close the festival.
Manager of DIFF Chipo Zhou, explains the choice of these two diverse films that have women as their focus. “We wanted to book-end DIFF with films that tell stories about women, their strength and their resilience. We also want to showcase the fact that there are many ways to tell these stories from a cinematic point of view,” said Zhou.
“We are in a time of diversity, where women, racial minorities and LGBTI communities who have traditionally been underrepresented in film are having their voices brought to the fore,” says Zhou. “Referencing this global narrative, the films in this year’s festival will reflect these new voices as much as possible.”
Among the features in competition this year are South African films
Farewell Ella Bella directed by Lwazi Mvusi, which follows a young woman on a journey to bury her father;
High Fantasy directed by Jenna Bass, in which a group of young South Africans have to navigate a personal-political labyrinth when they wake up to discover they have swapped bodies; Sara Blecher’s
Mayfair, a gangster film about a father and son; and
The Recce by Ferdinand van Zyl, which explores the pain and suffering families endured during and after South Africa’s 20-year border war.
International features in competition include
The Tale (USA) directed by Jennifer Fox, which chronicles one woman’s powerful investigation into her own childhood memories as she is forced to re-examine her first sexual experience;
Clint (India) by Hari Kumar, which tells the story of prodigious artist child who died before his seventh birthday, leaving behind 25000 pictures; and the closing film
Rafiki (Kenya), directed by Wanuri Kahiu, which is set in Nairobi and tells the touching tale of two very different girls who fall in love.
Competition titles in the documentary section include the South African film
Silas, a global tale directed by Anjali Nayar and Hawa Essuman which warns of the power of politics and celebrates the capacity of individuals to fight back, and
Whispering Truth to Power, directed by human rights lawyer Shameela Seedat, which tracks Thuli Madonsela, South Africa’s first female Public Protector, as she builds her second case against President Jacob Zuma.
International documentaries in competition include
New Moon (Kenya), directed by Phillippa Ndisi-Herrmann, who explores her journey to Sufi Islam;
Amal (Lebanon, Egypt, France, Germany, Norway, Denmark), directed by Mohamed Siam, which follows a teenager as she comes to terms with her identity and sexuality in a post-revolutionary police state;
Shakedown (USA) directed by Leilah Weinraub, which chronicles explicit performances in an underground queer club in Los Angeles; and
The State Against Nelson Mandela and the Others (France) by Nicolas Champeaux and Gilles Porte, which offers archival recordings that include Mandela’s co-accused at the Rivonia Treason Trial hearings, and which transports the audience back into the courtroom battles.
Other South African films on the billing include Durban filmmaker Michael Cross’ award-winning
The Fun’s Not Over, about the life of musician James Philips, and Eubulus Timothy’s warm, coming-of-age surf love story
Deepend.
Sisters of the Wilderness is Karin Slater’s inspiring film which is set in the iMfolozi Wilderness and follows five young Zulu women on a journey of self-discovery. Then there is Oscar-nominated director Darrel Roodt’s horror
Siembamba, Stephina Zwane’s comedy
Baby Mamas, which revolves around the daily lives and loves of four women and their own real-life baby mama drama, Leli Maki’s comedy
Table Manners, in which a wife and mother finds solace and hope in cooking, learning that all she needs is life’s three courses – family, food and love.
Prior to each screening, public service announcements will be shown. These are themed around an industry campaign #thatsnotok created by SWIFT (Sisters Working in Film and Television), the SA-based non-profit that works to protect and advance the cause of women in the industry.
In 2018 DIFF continues its endeavours to grow cinema audiences and this year free community-based screenings will take place at Solomon Mahlangu Hall (New Germany/Clermont), KwaMashu Fan Park, Umlazi W Section Library and The Workshop Amphitheatre. Other screenings take place at Community ZA (formerly Artspace Gallery in Umgeni) and KZNSA Gallery, Musgrave Ster Kinekor, Suncoast Cine Centre and Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, as well as Ushaka Marine World, where the popular free ocean-focused film festival Wavescapeswill take place in the public area.
“With about 400 film-makers in attendance, the public can look forward to a feast of film and some fascinating insights into the world of cinema,” concludes Zhou.
The DIFF is organised by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts in partnership with the eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission, National Film and Video Foundation, Durban Film Office and other valuable partners.
DIFF opens at The Playhouse on July 19 and runs until July 29. The closing film will be screened on July 28, after the competition awards.
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The Tale, starring Laura Dern will have its South African Premiere at this year’s Durban International Film Festival. The director Jennifer Fox will be in attendance at the DIFF to present her film, and at the Durban FilmMart where she will be participating in a panel session entitled The Medium is the Message, where she will be discussing the transition from documentary film-making to narrative film-making. The Tale will screen on Saturday, July 21 at 14:15 at Suncoast CineCentre followed by a screening on July 23 at 16:00 at Musgrave Ster Kinekor.
The Tale chronicles one woman’s powerful investigation into her own childhood memories, as she is forced to reexamine her first sexual experience – and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. The film is written and directed by Sundance Grand Prize winner and Emmy® nominee Jennifer Fox, who based it on her own true story.
Starring Laura Dern (Oscar® nominee for “Wild” and “Rambling Rose”; Emmy® winner for HBO’s “Big Little Lies”; Emmy® nominee for HBO’s “Enlightened,” “Recount” and “Afterburn”), together with Isabelle Nélisse (“Mama”), Elizabeth Debicki (“The Night Manager”), Jason Ritter (“Kevin (Probably) Saves the World”), Frances Conroy (Emmy® nominee for HBO’s “Six Feet Under”) and John Heard (Emmy® nominee for HBO’s “The Sopranos”), with Common (Oscar® winner for “Selma”) and Ellen Burstyn (Academy Award® winner for “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”).
An accomplished documentarian working in New York, Jennifer (Laura Dern) is completing her latest project about the lives of women around the world. She receives a series of phone calls from her mother, Nettie (Ellen Burstyn), who has found a short story Jennifer wrote at age 13, in which she describes various encounters with her riding instructor, Mrs. G (Elizabeth Debicki), and her running coach, Bill (Jason Ritter), while at summer camp. Nettie is unnerved by the implications of her daughter’s writing, but Jennifer is nonplussed. She has always looked back with fondness on the time she spent with these two charismatic adults.
Egged on by Nettie and encouraged by her supportive fiancé (Common), Jennifer yearns to know more and sets out on a journey, 30 years later, to find those people from her past – the children, now adults, who also attended the camp back then – and eventually the coaches themselves. But the more she learns, the more her memories shift and the more questions she unearths. As Jennifer’s frustration mounts, she finds herself turning inward to get to the truth, imagining conversations with her 13-year-old self (Isabelle Nélisse) and even Mrs. G and Bill in an effort to understand how and why events occurred so long ago.
An unforgettable meditation on the elusive nature of memory, The Tale is the first narrative feature from Jennifer Fox, whose documentary films have earned international acclaim for their groundbreaking artistry and unflinching honesty. Based on Fox’s own life story, THE TALE sees the filmmaker bravely pushing forward the boundaries of conventional storytelling, creating a dialogue between past and present to illustrate the interplay between memory and trauma.
“My goal was not to ask, ‘Did this happen?,’ because I always remembered it,” explains writer and director Fox. “It was, ‘How and why did it happen, and how and why did I spin it as a positive story?’ There was a lightbulb moment when I was making another film about women all around the world, and it seemed that every other woman – regardless of class, culture or color – had an abuse story to tell. Their stories just floored me, because they had a system or a paradigm that looked like my story. Suddenly, I couldn’t see it as my own private little narrative and knew that it was time to investigate what happened in the open space of a fictional film.”
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The Tale Director Jennifer Fox[/caption]
The Tale is produced by Jennifer Fox, Oren Moverman, Laura Rister, Mynette Louie, Simone Pero, Lawrence Inglee, Sol Bondy, Regina K. Scully, Lynda Weinman and Reka Posta. Julie Parker Benello, Dan Cogan, Geralyn Dreyfous, Wendy Ettinger, Abigail E. Disney, Robert & Penny Fox, Jayme Lemons, Amy Rodrigue, Ali Jazayeri, Jason Van Eman, David Van Eman, Ross Marroso and Ben McConley are executive producers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXpYsr3AL4U
Durban filmmaker Michael Cross’ award-winning documentary film, “
He was a composer, musician, bandleader and the voice and conscience of a generation of white South Africans. Cross’ film examines his extraordinary journey and his multiple musical incarnations.
Phillips’ Afrikaans alter ego Bernoldus Niemand’s 1983 single, “Hou My Vas Korporaal” (“Hold Me Tightly, Corporal”) became an anthem of the End Conscription Campaign and spawned “alternative” Afrikaans rock music and the Voëlvry movement.
In 1985, with his beloved Cherry Faced Lurchers, he recorded the gut-wrenching “Shot Down” that addressed both white privilege and the violence of the apartheid state.
James Phillips’ legacy is that of one of this country’s most aware, articulate and passionate artists. He was a genius, a satirist, a poet and probably one of the most accomplished songwriters that South Africa has ever produced.
“The Fun’s Not Over” tells James’ story in his own words and through the voices of journalists like Max du Preez, satirists Zapiro and Pieter Dirk Uys, his musical collaborators and label-mates like Koos Kombuis and Vusi Mahlasela, contemporary artists like Jack Parow and his friends and family.
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Filmmaker Michael Cross of “The Fun’s Not Over – The James Phillips Story”[/caption]
“The Fun’s Not Over – The James Phillips Story” will screen in competition, for Best South African Documentary Feature at the 39th Durban International Film Festival on Saturday July 21, 2018 at Musgrave 3 at 20:00 and Wednesday July 25, 2018 at Musgrave 3 at 18:00.
Spell Reel[/caption]
The Durban International Film Festival today announced the films and jury members for competition at this year’s 39th edition of the festival, which takes place from July 19 to 29, 2018.
Award categories are Best Feature Film, Best South African Feature Film, Best Documentary, Best SA Documentary, Best Short Film, Best African Short Film, Best South African Short Film, Best Actor Award, Best Actress, Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Artistic Bravery, Audience Choice Award, Wavescape Audience Choice Award and the Amnesty International Durban Human Rights Award.
Feature films in competition are 
Silas[/caption]
Documentary films in competition are We could be Heroes (Denmark, Morocco, Tunisa, Brazil) directed by Hind Bensari, 
The Tokoloshe[/caption]
A thriller/horror film and a LGTBI love-story have been selected respectively as the opening- and closing films of the 39th Durban International Film Festival (
The Tokoloshe, Jerome Pikwane[/caption]
The Tokoloshe is directed by Jerome Pikwane, co-written with novelist Richard Kunzmann and produced by Dumi Gumbi and Cati Weinek of The Ergo Company.
In The Tokoloshe, which stars Petronella Tshuma, Dawid Minnaar, Kwande Nkosi, Harriet Manamela and Yule Masiteng, a young woman, crippled by suppressed emotions, must find the courage to face an insatiable demon, wrought in her own childhood, when she tries to save the life of a girl-child abandoned in a rundown Johannesburg hospital.
“Using the horror genre I wanted to investigate how we suppress trauma, and what happens when the trauma comes to the surface. In effect, the Tokoloshe in South African mythology has become a foil for abuse that is ingrained in our society, ” says director Jerome Pikwane. “And the characters, their journey, their relationships are the focus and not the beautiful shots nor the CGI, although we have that too.”
“The film is not quite what one expects from its title, so I dare audiences to see beneath the surface,” says Zhou. “It is a horror film, crafted so intricately, unveiling the menace that is our everyday burden as woman in this country. But the film depicts the story of a survivor, not a victim. It is a chilling story, one that needs to be told now and is particularly relevant as it gives voice to the voiceless.”
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Rafiki[/caption]
Closing film 
Rafiki[/caption]
“We are delighted to be able to screen Rafiki at DIFF,” says Zhou. “The film speaks to the issues of patriarchy that has led the film to be banned in its own country, and closes a festival with a programme packed with films dealing with a host of current challenges that those marginalised in our society, and especially woman, are “loudly” grappling with.”
“At this time alongside the #MeToo and, closer to home, the “#ItsNotOk campaigns, that seek to expose the perpetrators of violence against woman, these films bookend a conscious and carefully curated selection of cinematic themes that also run as threads through the Durban FilmMart and through our new Isiphethu industry programme for emerging and micro-budget filmmakers.”
DIFF opens at The Playhouse on July 19 and runs until July 29. The closing film is on July 28.
Set in the iMfolozi wilderness, South Africa, in the oldest game park in Africa, the iconic Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park, where the White Rhino was saved from extinction, Sisters of the Wilderness tells the story of five young Zulu women venturing into the wilderness for the first time on a journey of self-discovery, reminding them that we are all intimately linked to nature.
Sisters of the Wilderness, a new South African social impact feature documentary, directed by award-wining filmmaker, Karin Slater, will have its world premiere at the 
9th Durban FilmMart : Zinder, The Seeds of Violence, (Niger) – Director: Aicha Macky. Producer: Clara Vuillermoz, Ousmane Samassekou,[/caption]
A total of 16 fiction feature films and documentaries projects from Africa have been selected to pitch at this year’s Durban FilmMart (DFM), which takes place from July 20 to 23, 2018 during the 39th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) (July 19 to 29 ).
A joint programme of the eThekwini Municipality’s film industry development unit, the Durban Film Office (DFO) and the DIFF, the Durban FilmMart aims to showcase and increase awareness of African cinema through stimulating film production on the continent by encouraging collaborations amongst African filmmakers.
“We are thrilled to announce the 2018 DFM Official Project selection,” says Toni Monty, Head of the Durban Film Office. “These sixteen projects were carefully picked from over 130 applications and will join the DFM team in Durban to partake in a two-day preparatory workshop, followed by two days of public pitching, round tables, and individual meetings, where they will face industry professionals (Broadcasters, funds, festivals and distribution and production company representatives) to negotiate support for their projects.”
The eight documentaries and eight feature fictions this year have been selected from Egypt, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Libya, Niger and South Africa representing a dynamic range of work-in-progress and collaborations between the various countries and nationalities.
“This year’s selection profiles an eclectic mix of stories from across Africa, bringing some new talents to the Durban FilmMart that we are excited to present to attending industry professionals,” says Monty. “We would like to congratulate all the selected projects on their success and thank all directors and producers who took the time to apply with their projects.”
A Father’s Will[/caption]
The Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) announced this year’s award-winners at the 38th DIFF Awards ceremony, with the award for the Best Feature Film going to 
The Durban FilmMart (
The Wound which premiered at this year’s 
A record 22 fiction feature films and documentaries projects in development from around Africa have been selected for the 8th edition of the Durban FilmMart (DFM) which takes place in Durban, South Africa from July 14 to 17, 2017.
A joint program of the eThekwini Municipality’s film industry development unit, the Durban Film Office (DFO) and the Durban International Film Festival (