South African Film Festival

Rebecca Varidel
10th May 2021

“South Africa produces some of the richest stories for cinema the world over. Much like the country itself, the films that come from South Africa are all at once challenging, bold, beautiful and heartwarming” says South African Film Festival Director Claire Jankelson

ONLINE Wednesday 12 May to Monday 24 May 2021
www.saff.org.au

The South African Film Festival is thrilled to present features and documentaries that explore the culture, history and politics of South Africa. The films you will see at SAFF are among the best. You will be entertained, touched and informed. The films selected for the South African Film Festival (SAFF) reflect South Africa’s diverse population, rich tradition of struggle for democracy and equality, and complex political and economic reality.

The South African Film Festival (SAFF) will present an engaging program of nine documentaries, five features and two short films screening online to audiences across Australia and New Zealand with special closing night in-cinema screenings in Sydney and Melbourne of the feature film Barakat.

Barakat offers a rare and insightful glimpse into the heart of the Muslim community of Cape Town, seen through the prism of one family’s travails as they grapple with the ups and downs of life, love and familial relationships.

Feature films in the Festival line-up include South Africa’s moving Oscar submission Toorbos. Based on a novel by celebrated Afrikaans author Dalene Matthee, Toorbos documents a woman blossoming against the destruction of her environment. Riding with Sugar is a zany, action-packed film about a young refugee's quest for BMX glory and the pursuit of identity, safety, happiness and love.

Raw, confronting and emotionally charged, Tess is adapted from Tracey Farren’s award-winning novel “Whiplash,” and follows a 20-year-old prostitute and addict in Cape Town whose life is turned upside-down by an unexpected pregnancy. For Love and Broken Bones is an unexpectedly tender gangster flick featuring a jazz musician debt collector who falls in love with his latest assignment, a wedding planner.

Four documentaries examine South Africa’s apartheid, its history and impacts on the future of the country. Blindside covers the 1974 boycott-breaking tour of South Africa by the British rugby team the Lions and how the sports boycott ultimately proved to be a powerful tool in helping to dismantle apartheid. Taking a sobering look at recent history, A New Country explores the aftermath of apartheid and a fractured contemporary society still battling its legacies. Winner of the Florence Film Award for Best Original Story, District Six is the film maker’s deeply personal account of her return to the ancestral community in Cape Town from which her family and thousands of others were forcibly removed during apartheid. Good Hope is a positive look at the future, exploring what the post –apartheid “Born Free” generation are doing to create a brighter future.

Other documentaries in the Festival include Jozi Gold which examines the dark heart of mining in South Africa; Influence, a revealing look at the immoral and weaponised influence that PR firm Bell Pottinger had in South Africa and the world; Mama Africa, which tracks the life of artist and activist Miriam Makeba, whose legendary singing became a passionate message of black liberation to the world; and SanDance, which captures the importance of dance to southern Africa’s oldest tribe, the San.

Two powerful shorts feature in the Festival line-up. Sides of a Horn uses a hybrid of dramatic and documentary styles to look at rhino poaching through two fictional antagonists, a ranger and a poacher, juxtaposing their points of view of a poaching incident that puts them both at risk. Letter Reader follows a twelve-year-old boy who becomes his village’s letter reader.

“This year’s line-up of films presents an exciting mix of daring narratives, striking cinematography and deep explorations into South African culture and community,” said Jankelson.

The Festival program, tickets and the full line-up of films available at >> www.saff.org.au

$8.00 single screening. $60.00 for full program, single person and $80 more than one person.

In Support of Education without Borders

Inspired by Festival partners in Vancouver and Toronto: Vancouver South African Film Festival and Toronto South African Film Festival, we are all supporting Education without Borders (EwB), an education foundation operating in SA since 2002.

All ticket proceeds will go to supporting Education without Borders programs that assist young South Africans in some of the country’s most disadvantaged communities. The funds generated by this year’s Festival will support vulnerable groups in South Africa, of particular importance this year given the impact of COVID-19.