The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) will host the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) from 21 to 30 July. This will be the 43rd edition of the festival, themed: “Adaptation, Survival and Sustainability”.
The festival will present a selection of South African premieres, which include a diverse number of features, documentaries and shorts, as live screenings at Suncoast CineCentre in collaboration with Avalon Group. The festival has curated a hybrid film presentation programme consisting of almost 200 features, documentaries, shorts and student films.
The selected films, programmed by national and international film professionals, highlight alternative views through different lenses. The programme celebrates the myriad of ways in which we have all restructured our lives to reflect the current global focus. Films that reach back while looking forward, focusing on strengthening the tapestry of indigenous and authentic stories with a view to diversity and inclusion. The programme’s greatest strength is its 50% female content contribution and representation.
Some of the feature films that highlight these themes include: Donkeyhead (Canada), directed by Agam Darshi; Juwaa (Belgium), directed by Nganji Mutiri; Klondike (Ukraine), directed by Maryna Er Gorbach; Public Toilet Africa (Ghana), directed by Felix ‘Kofi’ Ofosu-Yeboah; Ring Wandering (Japan), directed by Masakazu Kaneko; Skeletons (South Africa), directed by Jade Bowers and Valley of a Thousand Hills, directed by Bonnie Sithebe.
Festival Manager, Valma Pfaff, said: “The DIFF prides itself on discovering and nurturing new talent, and each year we select films from filmmakers from various countries, including first-time feature-length directors. The 43rd edition is no exception with almost 30% directorial debut feature-length films programmed, which we are very excited about.”
She said that additionally, the festival will screen two films by French directors in partnership with VideoVision that are exclusively screened in cinema: Eiffel, directed by Martin Bourboulon, a romance drama about celebrated engineer Gustave Eiffel, and Notre Dame on Fire, directed by Jean-Jacque Annaud, a thriller drama that gives a blow-by-blow recreation of the gripping events that took place on 15 April 2019 when the cathedral suffered the biggest blaze in its history.
DIFF 2022 will be presented in a hybrid edition with online screenings at www.durbanfilmfest.com. The information about the live screenings is accessible on https://ccadiff.ukzn.ac.za/live-screenings/
