Suzy Bell
Alfred Hitchcock fans will drool, and politically-sussed bhangra-babes will ditch their men for the night to watch award-winning Indian director Mani Ratnam’s film Irwar (The Duo).
Yep, it’s the 19th Durban International Film Festival and there’s something for everyone among the 20 feature films and four documentaries. The films are mainly from Britain, but there are also Japanese, Italian, Australian, German, Norwegian, Canadian, and Israeli films. What’s missing, however, is a slice of African cinema.
Festival director, Gulam Mather spent six months seeking contemporary films made in Africa.He found four, but they were co-produced with international backing. “There were also only a limited number of prints available and it also transpired that they’d prefer to showcase their films in Europe or America.”
M-Net, however, have made up for the lack of local content by sponsoring the South African shorts and features, which are all free screenings on Sunday afternoons. These are taken from the M-Net New Directions initiative for emerging scriptwriters and directors.
As for the international selection, many of the movies seem well worth a look.
Hana-Bi, by the cult Japanese director Takeshi Kitano, is a film about a retired cop who drifts into crime to save a suicidal colleague and to take his terminally ill wife on one last trip.
Junk Mail, by Norwegian director Pat Sletuane,is about a postman who reads others’ love letters and dumps mail he doesn’t like.
The Duo is set in Tamil Nadu, south India, the film explores the complex relationship of an actor and a politician over five decades of marriages, deaths, love affairs, and betrayals.
Rubicon is a children’s short by German director Gil Alkabetz, about a wolf, a sheep and a cabbage, who need to cross a river. The question is: how can you bring them across one by one without the sheep eating the cabbage or the wolf eating the sheep?
The Butcher Boy, directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), is based on the award-winning novel by Patrick McCabe, the darkly comic tale set in a rural town in 1960’s Ireland.
The festival runs from July 15 to August 5 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre at the University of Natal. Tickets are R10 at the door and R12 at Computicket. There are thrree screenings a day, at 3.30pm, 6pm and 8pm Mondays to Wednesdays, with an additional screening at 1pm from Thursdays to Sundays.