The 45th DIFF will be held at various venues in Durban from July 18-28.
Durban — The programme at this year’s Durban International Film Festival features 92 films from 50 countries across several continents.
The 45th DIFF will be held at various venues in Durban from July 18-28.
There are twenty-nine features including several that have won international awards from Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and Venice.
The 16 documentaries are from well-known and emerging directors from South Africa and abroad. They include films about football, COPA 71; Taiwan’s first female president, Invisible Nation, and Kenya’s Laikipia region, The Battle for Laikipia.
The 26 short films are also representative of almost every corner of the globe.
This year DIFF will present 14 world premieres, five international premieres, 36 African premieres, and 37 South African premieres.
Students from five South African tertiary institutions – AFDA, Film School Africa, The Animation School, The University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal – are among 19 different institutions representing the 21 student films.
This year 73% of the programme is women-led, where either the director, writer, or producer is a female, ensuring that not only the films but the festival itself has a strong women-focused agenda.
Facts and figures tell one side of the festival story but the other will be made and told by the large numbers of audience members who will experience different worlds and captivating stories and understand diverse ways of looking at and being in the world. It is the number of these stories and the countless happy memories that are created by the film festival that are the numbers that matter.
DIFF, presented by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, is regarded as a leading film festival in Africa. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest and largest film festival in Southern Africa and also offers workshops, seminars, and outreach activities that include screenings in township areas where cinemas do not exist.
DIFF is the only Oscar-qualifying festival in Southern Africa, for Best Documentary and Best Short Film; and one of four Oscar-qualifying festivals on the continent.
To stay up to date on all the news about the festival, follow DIFF on Facebook, Instagram, and X, or visit https://ccadiff.ukzn.ac.za/ to sign up for the DIFF newsletter.
For more information on our venues and bookings, please visit https://ccadiff.ukzn.ac.za/
Independent on Saturday
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