23 January, 2017 - 06:59
Multiple award-winning South African short film The Suit has been selected for two ground-breaking Canadian film festivals as it continues to impress audiences and critics across the globe.
Written and directed by Jarryd Coetsee and based on the acclaimed short story by Drum era journalist Can Themba, the film is part of the Official Selection of the Toronto Black Film Festival, and it was also chosen unanimously by the seven committee members of the Vancouver South African Film Festival. This follows on the film's selection for the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles which takes place in February. The film stars Tony Award-winner John Kani, his son Atandwa Kani and Phuthi Nakene.
Coetsee was unaware of the success of The Suit on the days that the shortlisted films were announced. All we wanted was for the film to be shared with audiences at a few festivals. It came as such a lovely and pleasant surprise that The Suit has resonated in Canada. It's a humbling experience and I'm truly grateful for this wonderful recognition.
Set in the dusty township of 1950s Sophiatown, the story takes placed shortly before the apartheid regime removed the racially diverse residents by force and relocated them to the outskirts of Johannesburg to make way for white resettlement after Sophiatown was bulldozed and renamed Triomf, Afrikaans for Triumph. The Suit focuses on Philemon, who works for a white lawyer, and his wife, Matilda. One day, Philemon discovers Matilda in bed with her young lover. The lover flees, leaving behind his suit. Philemon decides to punish Matilda in a cruel way, by forcing her to treat her lover's suit as if it were a person. She must serve it meals, take it for walks around the neighbourhood and seat it beside her at church. Philemon's cruel punishment of Matilda leads to an astonishing climax.
Coetsee is inspired by the story's progressive message. The Suit is really a warning from the past to strive for positive change in the present. I look forward to sharing its transformative message with audiences in Canada in our fresh take on this beloved classic and showcasing the sterling work of our cast and crew.
Founded by the Fabienne Colas Foundation, the 4th Toronto Black Film Festival (TBFF) runs from the 15th - 19th February 2017 and is dedicated to giving unique voices in cinema the opportunity to present audiences with new ways of looking at the world. It is a dynamic, refreshing and audacious festival whose ambition is to encourage the development of the independent film industry and to promote more films on the reality of black people from around the world.
The 6th Vancouver South African Film Festival takes place from the 31st March - 2nd April 2017 and presents shorts, features and documentaries which entertain and inform by exploring the culture, history and politics of South Africa. The festival is organized entirely by volunteers and all proceeds go to the important work that Education Without Borders has been doing in South Africa since 2002.
On the success of the film in North America, Coetsee says: South Africa is similar in many ways to the USA and Canada. Ours are violent contact-histories, from which pluralistic multi-cultural democracies have emerged. Our countries continue to grapple with a legacy of oppression, which is often more insidious than manifest. The Suit is relevant today because it is fundamentally concerned with the impact of oppression on personal relationships and the danger of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, through an easily relatable and very powerful allegory.
Coetsee, who studied film-making in London on a scholarship from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, decided to make the film while living in London during the onset of the Syrian migrant crisis and realizing the story's global relevance. The Suit has only been on the international film festival circuit for the past six months, so I'm really thrilled by its success thus far.
The film was produced by Luke Sharland of Mandala Films in association with the National Film and Video Foundation and a partnership with AFDA. Apart from the years of painstaking research, Coetsee received guidance from the Sophiatown Heritage Centre and the film was shot in buildings that were spared from the demolition of Sophiatown which occurred in the wake of the forced removals.
The Suit won the Best Short Film competition of the Scotland African Film Festival which took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow late last year. It also scooped the Audience Award at the Cape Town leg of the Switzerland-based Shnit International Short Film Festival and was given a Special Mention by the jury of the Zanzibar International Film Festival. The Suit opened the Mauritius International Film Festival and was screened at the Red Bull Amaphiko Film Festival in Soweto.
Short Films
Africa South Africa
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
23 January, 2017 - 06:59 
