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Joburg’s longest running multigenre film festival is back, and its founder and organiser Lisa Henry wants to put it on record that all the films are worth seeing. Here are just some that will be showing.
8th annual Jozi Film Festival
October 3 to 6
Tickets and full schedule available at jozifilmfestival.com
Venues: Nu Metro Hyde Park, The Bioscope Independent Cinema in Maboneng and Delta Park Environmental Centre
An Ordinary People
October 3
Hyde Park Nu Metro (6pm) and The Bioscope Independent Cinema (8pm)
FIRST LOOK
If you’re an adrenaline junkie you will love local film maker Ernest Nkosi’s documentary feature film, An Ordinary People. It showcases the world of car spinning, where hustlers and dreamers of modest means become heroes.
When looking for a film to open our festival with, we always choose a local production. An Ordinary People ticks all the boxes: much of the film was shot in Jozi, the director is a Joburger and we think the film will show people a side of South African life they might not have seen before.
It will be screened at Hyde Park Nu Metro by invitation only. A free screening will be at The Bioscope, at 8pm. Be sure to reserve your seat now! Nkosi’s films are always packed to capacity at the festival, and with good reason.
The film is not officially billed as a premiere, but rather a first look, as it remains in the running for some big international festivals that require world premiere status.
In short, the Jozi Film Festival (JFF) is offering Jozi audiences a sneak peek and we hope An Ordinary People will be blowing away Sundance and Toronto audiences soon.
Golden Fish, African Fish
October 4, 8.45pm
The Bioscope Independent Cinema
SOUTH AFRICAN PREMIERE
Multi-award winning Golden Fish, African Fish by directors Thomas Grand and Moussa Diop documents a way of life for artisanal fishermen in the Senegalese village of Koufontaine. The film offers a clear and unbiased view of a situation that is far more complex than it may at first seem to an outsider.
It shows us, in faultless documentary style, how harsh the work of fishermen is. Once caught, the fish must be taken to the shore, smoked on site and then sold to locals as well as to other African countries.
Koufontaine’s model is far from perfect, but it is a living community, now under threat from big industry. As one of the workers says: “Factory here means death.” Golden Fish, African Fish shows both the benefits and the life of struggle without industrialisation.
Exorcist of Apartheid
October 6, 12.30pm
The Bioscope Independent Cinema
Twenty years after the death of Dr Johan Adam Heyns, his grandson Adam, the film’s director, is trying to make sense of his grandfather’s legacy and his country’s traumatic past.
For almost three years Adam goes through archives and conducts interviews while juggling his full-time job, trying to find out who his grandfather really was.
He discards all this material and starts over when his grandmother gives him a VHS player and a box of tapes.
It takes him two more years and a film maker friend to cut this footage down to the 20 minutes that you see in the film. Today, his grandfather’s decades-old question still haunts him: “How can we reconcile white fear and black aspirations?”
Who was Johan Adam Heyns? A minister in the Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), the largest and most powerful white church in apartheid-era South Africa. During the 1986 state of emergency, Heyns was elected leader of the NGK.
At a turbulent meeting of church elders, Heyns led the church to reject apartheid and subsequently declared it a sin. This caused a huge backlash in the Afrikaans community, much of it directed against Heyns.
He received numerous death threats from the far right and on November 5 1994, in a “free South Africa”, he was shot dead in his home. The crime has never been solved.
Shaka’s Mask
October 5, 6.30pm
The Bioscope Independent Cinema
SOUTH AFRICAN PREMIERE
This short fiction film by director Maisha Mosala tells the story of a fictional Shaka.
In Johannesburg’s urban reality of seemingly instant success and obsession with status, a privileged Shaka from an affluent family is forced to run his family’s business after his parents tragically die.
Under his management the business is now facing bankruptcy and Shaka is consumed with trying to keep up appearances on social media that all is well.
A jury member’s feedback sums it up well: “It [the film] was emotionally engaging and real on many levels. It’s the story of our time.”
Run As One
October 5, 4pm
Delta Park Environmental Centre
JOHANNESBURG PREMIERE
I have never run. I will never run but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this inspiring and uplifting film on the history of the Two Oceans Ultra Marathon.
The race was started by 26 white runners in 1970 – it was the first long-distance race that was open to everybody, regardless of race or gender in a country in the grip of the apartheid regime. Today it has evolved into an event that draws more than 30 000 runners from around the world.
The film, by director Alex Fynn, features the untold stories of some of the race’s legends competing against all odds in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s.
From Vincent Rakabaele’s nail-biting finish in 1976 to Frith van der Merwe’s still unbeaten record-breaking time in 1989, the heroic feats of our former stars will inspire the new generation of long-distance runners.
Tales of when South Africa was not able to compete internationally are told by icons such as Blanche Moila, Beverley Malan, Bruce Fordyce and William Mtolo – the first South African to win the New York Marathon in 1992.
Sidenote: This is the first time we are screening films at the amazing little Art Deco theatre in Delta Park. Run As One is followed by two great documentaries.
The Rhino Cup, at 5.30pm, focuses on the creation of the football league on the SA/Mozambique border which led to a drop in rhino poaching numbers.
Our Oceans: A Journey of Discovery, at 7pm, is a brilliant doccie on our seas and coastline that will teach you some things you never knew about our oceans.
Tickets at Delta are only R50 at the door or via our website. You can bring a picnic basket and hang out in one of Jozi’s green lungs before or after the films. Free popcorn at Delta!
There are many more films that will make you laugh – JBurg (Canada), Cowboy Dan and Life’s A Drag (both SA), think (Watching The Pain Of Others (France), a doccie about another doccie and social media’s effect on us, cry and smile and walk away inspired (UnMasked: We All Breathe (SA), about multidrug resistant tuberculosis and Tin Soldiers (SA), about a rare disease that turns muscle into bone, and the search for the cure that will unlock many other cures for many other diseases).
We provide the platform for four days – use it!
- No taxpayer’s money is spent on JFF. We are 100% independent
