Durban International Film Festival offers a cinematic smorgasbord

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Durban International Film Festival offers a cinematic smorgasbord --

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:48

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From 17 to 27 July, the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) will present over 250 screenings in nine venues across the city. Aside from the 69 feature films, 60 documentaries, 57 short films and 19 surf films which make up its diverse film line-up, the festival offers workshops and seminars delivered by industry experts.

DIFF 2014 films will screen at: Suncoast Cinecentre, Ster Kinekor Musgrave, Gateway Cinema Nouveau, Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre in KwaMashu, and the Tsogo Sun Elangeni Hotel. A special programme of screenings will also feature at: the Bay of Plenty Lawns, the KZNSA Gallery and the Luthuli Museum on the North Coast.

South African films will be a key festival focus, with many receiving their world premieres at DIFF. The festival opens with Hard to Get, a love story action film directed by Zee Ntuli, and features a number of high-profile local films such as the crime thriller Cold Harbour, reunion movie Between Friends, local dance film Hear Me Move, and Love the One you Love, which explores the diverse relationships of young South Africans.

Audiences can also look forward to Two Choices which offers a perspective of the afterlife, The Two of Us which features the turbulent relationship of a brother and sister, Icehorse, a mystery drama set in the Netherlands, sci-fi flick Young Ones, and French/South African co-production Zulu, which explores the scars that still exist in the new South Africa. The 1973 film Joe Bullet will also be presented as part of the Gravel Road legacy project, an initiative geared at restoring all-but-forgotten South African films.

Films from across the African continent will also feature at DIFF, by a number of artistically and politically courageous directors who boldly experiment with form and content. The Algerian revolution is recounted in Bloody Beans, Beti and Amare is an Ethiopian vampire film and Timbuktu tells of Timbuktu s short-lived occupation by militant Islamic rebels. Other notable films include They Are the Dogs mockumentary, semi-autographical film Die Welt, Rwandan drama Imbabazi: The Pardon, award-winning crime drama Nairobi Half Life, the highly anticipated Half of a Yellow Sun and fact-inspired drama Difret.

DIFF 2014 boasts the largest selection of documentaries in its 35 year history and will screen compelling films from around the world as well as those within the 20 Years of Freedom special focus and Wild Talk segments. We Come as Friends examines the effect of neo-colonialism in newly independent South Sudan, a look at life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon features in A World Not Ours and Cairo Drive looks at contemporary Cairo and its radical traffic system. These Birds Walk features the story of a Pakistani orphanage and ambulance service, killings of citizens by American soldiers in Afghanistan is the focus in The Kill Team and Swaziland s King Mswati III is the subject of The King and the People.

The Films That Made Me is a section of DIFF which is presented by an acclaimed South African director who screens five films that influenced his growth as a filmmaker. Khalo Matabane is the featured director this year and he will screen and discuss Krzysztof Kie lowski s A Short Film About Killing (1988), Denys Arcand s The Decline Of The American Empire (1986), Martin Scorsese s Raging Bull (1980), Alfred Hitchcock s Rear Window (1954) and Spike Lee s Do The Right Thing (1989).

Films exploring sexuality and gender will also feature as part of the festival programme, in filmmaking styles as diverse as the sexuality they document. 52 Tuesdays accounts a female-to-male gender transition, a gay marital relationship is explored in Love is Strange, Qissa tells the story of a girl who is raised as a boy and Something Must Break tells the story a straight man who falls for a man transitioning to a woman.

Other sections of the festival not to be missed are World Cinema, which features a selection of compelling international films, the UK Focus, which offers audience an assortment of contemporary British films and Wavescape, which offers a spread of surfing cinema.

Tickets can be purchased from venues at prices ranging from R25 to R40 (R50 for 3D screenings), except at Luthuli Museum, Ekhaya, Elangeni Hotel and Bay of Plenty lawns, which are free of charge. The Short Film programme at the KZNSA Gallery costs R25.

Visit the DIFF website \ for the full screening schedule and more information.

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