This July sees the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) return for its 36th year of cinematic celebration. From 16 to 26 July, the city will celebrate the wonder and diversity of global cinema, with over 200 screenings in nine venues. Alongside this selection of quality contemporary cinema, including 74 feature films, 50 documentaries, 74 short films and 23 surf films, the festival offers an extensive workshop and seminar programme in which industry experts from around the world share their knowledge and skills.This years diverse line-up includes an expanded focus on African cinema with a selection of Africa's Lost Classics and a showcase of this year's FESPACO winners. Other focus areas include a cross-section of contemporary cinema from Brazil and an investigation into the filmmaking landscape of a changing Tunisia, as well DIFF Beat, which celebrates a number of music-based films, and Just One Earth, which presents a selection of environmentally and sustainability themed titles. In addition to the generous selection of feature films and cutting edge documentaries, DIFF 2015 will screen 10 packages of short films and a selection of thrilling surf films in the Wavescape Surf Film Festival.
South African Focus
While DIFF is a vital showcase for the ever-expanding African film industry, South African film remains the festival's key focus, with 14 feature and 13 documentary films and 30 short films - most of them receiving their world premieres on Durban screens.
This year's opening night film sees the African premiere of Ayanda, the second fiction feature film from South African filmmaker Sara Blecher who opened the festival in 2011 with Otelo Burning. Ayanda tells the story of single-minded 21-year-old Afro-hipster Ayanda (Fulu Mugovhani) who has a talent for taking neglected pieces of furniture and bringing them back to life. Eight years after her father's death, his prized auto repair garage is in financial trouble and in danger of being sold, but Ayanda does everything in her power to hold onto his legacy.
Then there's Breathe - Umphefumlo, the Isango Ensemble's contemporary adaptation of Puccini's La Boheme; the low-budget horror The Actor from Aiden Whytock; the politically inclined Bonnie-and-Clyde' tale Impunity from Jyoti Mistry; and the long awaited Necktie Youth from Sibs Shongwe-Le Mer. Other South African fiction feature films include Dis Ek, Anna, based on the famous Afrikaans novel and directed by Sara Blecher, and the dramatic thriller Lady Grey from Alain Chouquart.
South African documentaries include Blood Lions, which follows a South African conservationist and an American hunter on their journey through the lion hunting industry; Coming of Age, which follows the lives of two teenagers in Lesotho; Glory Game - The Joost van der Westhuizen Story, which chronicles the famous rugby player's battle with motor neuron disease; and The Shore Break which documents the attempts by a foreign mining company to mine titanium in the Eastern Cape.
African Focus
The rich programme of films from elsewhere on the continent includes a number of strong directorial talents. From South Africa's Mpumelelo Mcata comes the challenging documentary-hybrid Black President. Philippe Lac te's Run is a left-field masterpiece from C te d'Ivoire and Uganda delivers the goods with The Boda Boda Thieves, the latest title from vivacious creative co-operative Yes! That's Us.
African documentaries include the powerful Beats of the Antonov, which portrays the musical lives of a war-torn community in Sudan; the remarkable Sembene! which documents the life and career of African master Ousmane Sembene; and Paths to Freedom, which explores the genesis of Namibias armed struggle against South Africa.
Africa's Lost Classics is a selection providing a rare opportunity for viewers to catch some of the most powerful and idiosyncratic works from the continent's rich film history. The selection comprises the previously lost masterpiece Come Back, Africa; the seminal Mapantsula from Oliver Schmitz; and The Blue Eyes of Yonta by pioneering Guinea-Bissau filmmaker Flora Gomes; as well as Badou Boy and Touki Bouki, both from African master Djibril Diop Mambety.
FESPACO Stallions
In a special tribute to African cinema, DIFF 2015 features six winners from the 2015 edition of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, or FESPACO. These include amongst others Fevers, which tells the story of Benjamin, who moves in with his father and grandparents in a Paris suburb in order to avoid foster-care; S kou Traor 's feature debut film The Eye of the Cyclone, a psychological drama about a young lawyer who has been appointed a case that no one else wants; and Rehad Desai's Miners Shot Down which returns to DIFF after being celebrated at FESPACO this year.
World Cinema
Following its rich tradition of world cinema, DIFF 2015 presents a diverse showcase of films from around the world. 1000 Rupee Note from India tells the story of a poor old widow named Budhi who receives a gift of several 1000 Rupee notes from a politician. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night bills itself as the first Iranian Vampire Western, while Dealer, from France, documents 24 hours in the increasingly hellish life of a small time drug dealer. Bob And The Trees tells the story of Bob, a 50-year-old logger in rural Massachusetts with a soft spot for golf and gangster rap. Jean-Jacques Annaud's visually spectacular film Wolf Totem from France and China; Roger Allers's animation of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet; Gregg Araki's dramatic thriller White Bird in a Blizzard; Kim Farrant's uneasy drama Strangerland set in Australia; and Chinese director Zhang Yimou's drama romance, Coming Home contribute to the richly textured programme this year.
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