South African short film invited to screen in Leiden and The Hague

28 June, 2017 - 08:01

Director Jarryd Coetsee's short film adaptation of Can Themba's acclaimed short story The Suit continues to captivate audiences on the international film festival circuit and this time it will be shown in the Netherlands as part of the iAfrica Film Festival.

The second edition of the festival will be held on 21 September 2017 in Leiden and the 6, 7 and 8 October 2017 in the Korzo Theatre in The Hague. The Suit is a tragic tale of adultery and revenge set in 1950s Sophiatown on the eve of the apartheid government's forced removals. It was produced by Luke Sharland of Mandala Films in association with the National Film and Video Foundation and a partnership with AFDA.

Atandwa Kani, who can be seen in Marvel's upcoming tent-pole Black Panther , takes a simmering turn as a cuckolded husband who punishes his wife, played in a nuanced way by emerging star Phuthi Nakene, by demanding that she treats her lover's suit as if it were a person. Screen and theatre legend John Kani delivers a memorable performance as the township gossip that breaks the news of the affair.

Director Jarryd Coetsee says: South Africa and the Netherlands have a fairly long mutual history in which cultural exchange hasn't always occurred on an equal footing. I'm delighted about the invitation to screen The Suit at the iAfrica Film Festival which seeks to redress this imbalance by enabling African filmmakers and actors a significant platform to express our voices and concerns in our own way. It's also an opportunity to introduce the Dutch public to a unique take on pressing but long-standing issues in South Africa, some of which we have in common, and share in the magic of cinema.

The aim of the film festival is to promote African & diaspora cinema in the Netherlands and to enable the continuous development of this form of art and its importance in African countries. Furthermore, the festival highlights societal issues related to Africa and its diaspora. The festival aims to provide Dutch viewers with a different perspective of how African filmmakers view societal issues in their countries and in relation to the African continent.

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The iAfrica Film Festival also seeks to enable audiences to look through the lens of the African filmmaker and see African actors in their glory. The festival screens movies that have not previously been shown to the Dutch public. The festival's mission is to change the perception of the African continent through the media of feature films, shorts, documentaries and animation, and offer African filmmakers and actors a means of showcasing their talents. The goal is to reach as wide and diverse an audience as possible to familiarize viewers with unique and socially-relevant films from and about Africa and its diaspora.

The iAfrica Film Festival is an initiative of the Yangambi Foundation. The Foundation has two main activities: the iAfrica Film Festival the iAfrica Music Festival. Ang lique Mbundu and Dady Kiyangi started the iAfrica Film Festival in 2016. Jeannette de Ridder joined the team after the successful first edition. For more information about the film festival, visit: http://film.iafricafestival.com/about-2/

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