The pick of the film fest

A labour of love involving years of research, this is a monumental film about one of South Africa’s greatest poets, Ingrid Jonker, featuring interviews, archival footage and meticulous investigations of her life.

Noguiera creates a warm tribute that plays as much like a thriller as a documentary about the darling of the “Sestiger” movement, who committed suicide by walking into the ocean one night in Sea Point and who was honoured by Nelson Mandela when he read her poem, Die Kind, at his inauguration.

Presented courtesy of producers Anant Singh of Videovision and David Heitner of Revolution Pictures, this rather Bergmanesque black comedy is a rarity – a South African existentialist horror movie that revolves around right-wing vampires in search of pure white blood.

Fanus, a young white cop, has his blood tested to advance his career in the police and unleashes a family curse that threatens to consume his soul. Starring Carl Beukes, Danny Keogh and Marius Weyers, it is occasionally a slog but is nevertheless an intriguing take on the darker side of the South African psyche.

As far as other South African films go, our ailing industry shows it is still strong at producing documentaries and short films – many of which are on show at the festival.

A reconstructive history of South African gays and lesbians from colonial times to the present. Using acted-out “historical” footage with archival material and still photographs, it’s a fascinating and important look at a section of our population only recently recognised in the Constitution.

A touching, magical movie that unfortunately has not seen the light of a local distributor or broadcaster and in fact was financed by the Goethe Institute, it is based on the plight of Johannesburg street kids.

Infused with great compassion, the film avoids the pitfalls and boredom of a talking-heads documentary.

This documentary is an intensely personal account of director Han’s family history, tracing their origins from China, his parents’ arranged marriage, separation and reunion 14 years later in South Africa.

It deals with issues of immigration, class strictures and race as it examines the plight of Chinese people classified as second-class citizens under apartheid. It’s a unique and unmissable piece of local work.

The Return of the Great Dane – Director: Lars von Trier

A retrospective of rogue film-maker Lars von Trier’s early work presented by the Danish Film Institute.

Von Trier’s little-seen second feature film has the director himself playing – yes – a movie director planning a film about an epidemic sweeping the world. Unbeknown to him, there is in fact an epidemic sweeping the world. It’s quirky, crazy and very original.

The second part of Von Trier’s bizarre hospital series. It’s a ruthlessly funny and cynical look at a hospital, following the life of the chief neurosurgeon and his sex-crazed and gambling-obsessed staff. Critics have called it the Danish equivalent of Twin Peaks.

Von Trier places a small group of privileged young people in a wealthy neighbourhood and tests the community’s tolerance by having the cast act as idiots in various stages of disablement. It’s a very controversial movie, with hard-core sex scenes.

Transcendental Film: A Tribute to Robert Bresson

Two of this great French filmmaker’s movies will be shown at the festival and they are both must-sees.

This stark, enigmatic parable has a donkey as both a witness to and the victim of mankind’s cruelty, as he passes from owner to owner, giving rides, heaving agricultural machinery and receiving beatings and caresses in a coolly observed landscape of poverty and folly. It’s dry, ironic and extraordinarily moving.

A very austere study of the miseries of an inarticulate peasant girl in provincial France which culminates in her suicide. An intensely pure spiritual movie, simple yet radical. It is almost meditative in its alacrity and beauty.

Early Eros: The Films of Gustav Machaty

This Czech film-maker is notorious for making some of the seminal works of erotic cinema in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The festival is showcasing the silent movies accompanied by a score by South African composer Michael Blake.

A stormy night in an isolated cabin leads to major erotic tension and, of course, unbridled sex. Quite startling and quite a turn-on for a movie made in 1929.

Condemned by the Vatican, banned in the USA and the UK, this is a landmark erotic movie featuring Hedy Lamarr (then known as Hedy Kiesler) appearing nude and showing viewers that perfectly nice women could achieve orgasm and be as sexy as any troll on the street.

The Films of Peter Neal

British documentary film-maker Peter Neal will visit the festival with a selection of his movies – he is a specialist in recording the social and musical scene of “Swinging London” in the Sixties, including being a biographer of Jimi Hendrix.

An archival history of the blue movie, featuring delightful archival material and incisive research that makes for a fresh look at the sexuality of granddad’s day.

The only footage of the seminal Incredible String Band with amazing performances of such songs as All Writ Down and Mercy, I Cry.

The definitive film about Jimi Hendrix which is still unreleased due to legal problems with the Hendrix family estate. It features great concert footage as well as interviews and inspiring stories.

This is a rare opportunity to see a film which in all likelihood will never be released worldwide. It will be screened in rough-cut form.