By Olu Victor
South Africa’s largest and longest-running film festival, the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) has announced readiness for the 35th edition of the festival, scheduled to take place from July 17 to 27, 2014.
Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, as special project of the Deputy Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Humanities, Prof Cheryl Potgieter, the festival which parades the best of African films made headlines last year, when the movie, Of Good Report, was purportedly banned.
The Film and Publications Board (FPB) of South Africa had outlawed the flick on the grounds that a sex scene between a school teacher and a pupil amounted to child pornography.
Although the ban was later overturned by the Board’s appeal tribunal and a 28 million Rand damage suit against the FPB, the profile of the movie has been on the rise, with its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September of the same year, and later, at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) in Nigeria, where it opened a debate on artistic expression and went ahead to win the Best Film laurel.
This year, the 10-day celebration of world class cinema will see over 200 screenings of new films from South Africa, the continent and the world. This festival, according to organizers, will reflect on South Africa’s 20 years of democracy with a focus on film that explores the many diverse facets of the nation’s history over past decades.
Other themes and events of interest include focus on African cinema and British cinema, the Wildtalk Africa Film Festival, Wavescape Surf Film Festival and a programme of cinema centered on architecture, in anticipation of the International Union of Architects Congress 2014 taking place in Durban.
Industry initiatives include seminars and workshops with notable industry figures, the 7th Talents Durban (in cooperation with the Berlin Talents) and the 5th Durban FilmMart co-production market (in partnership with the Durban Film Office).
The festival is a hub for the African film industry and is an ‘unmissable’ date on any film lover’s calendar.
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