WHEN I heard that Hard to Get, the work of another first-time feature film director, will open this year’s edition of Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), the thought of Jahmil Qubeka’s Of Good Report and its serial conquest came flashing with so much interest.
Will there be a back-to-back repeat of the drama that followed the ban of Of Good Report by the Film and Publications Board (FPB) of South Africa on the grounds that a sex scene between a school teacher and a pupil amounted to child pornography?
Like Qubeka’s film, will this one by Zee Ntuli be banned for exploring a related theme, which tells the story of TK, a handsome young womaniser from a small community, who falls for a sexy and reckless young thief named Skiets?
Also, like Qubeka’s film, will Hard to Get be banned and unbanned, in such a way that the Board’s appeal tribunal will pay 28 million Rand damages?
Also,will the film go ahead to rule awards and festivals in Africa and beyond, like its predecessor? Indeed, what is DIFF’s pact with first-time filmmakers? And will this model bare its dominance on the continent?
Of Good Report, a hard-hitting and evocative narrative about a schoolteacher and social misfit whose illicit affair with one of his pupils spirals into an abyss of obsession and shameful lust, had won Best Film at the South African Film and Television Award (SAFTA) and the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), among others.
With this success in mind, festival rats will be at home with the choice of DIFF special selections and
Hard To Get, another arty South African film centred on youthful exuberance, will, no doubt, trigger interest on July 17, when DIFF opens.
Interestingly, Ntuli has already received critical acclaim for his short films and Hard To Get is said to be fuelled by a bewitching visual poetry.
The action romance explores the universal theme of love in the very specific context of contemporary South Africa. The film is set against the unpredictable backdrop of Joburg’s criminal underworld. The criminal gauntlet parallels the emotional journey of TK and Skiets, providing a metaphor for how scary falling in love can be. “Ultimately, it is a hopeful story, one which carries the message that love is worth fighting for,” said the director.
That aside, DIFF is one festival that celebrates Africa, giving room for filmmakers in the continent to showcase their works, without the kind of restriction posed by the biennial Festival of Pan African Cinema (FESPACO) holding in Burkina Faso.
Although South African film retains the festival’s key focus with 40 feature-length films and 38 short films, most of them receiving their world premieres on Durban screens and collectively representing by far the largest number of South African films in the festival’s 35 year history, there have been room for filmmakers from other countries.
The rich programme of films from elsewhere on the continent includes a number of artistically and politically brave directorial voices that are not afraid to experiment with form or content. The bewitching and highly experimental Bloody Beans recounts the Algerian revolution, using a band of young children as its medium of expression, while the utterly charming and super-low-budget Beti and Amare is an Ethiopian vampire film with a difference.
DIFF 2014 also acknowledges the political reality of contemporary Africa with films such as Timbuktu from Malian master Abderrahmane Sissako, which recounts Timbuktu’s brief occupation by militant Islamic rebels. The mockumentary hybrid, They Are the Dogs, is set in Morocco in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, while the engagingly authentic, semi-autographical film, Die Welt, is set in Tunisia shortly after the recent Jasmine Revolution.
Imbabazi: The Pardon explores the possibilities of reconciliation in the wake of the Rwandan genocide and Difret examines the potentially destructive role of patriarchal traditions in contemporary Ethiopia.
Set in Tanzania, the disturbing but visually powerful White Shadow tells the story of a young albino boy named Alias who is targeted for body parts by muti traders. Veve, the latest film from the producers of the award-winning crime drama Nairobi Half Life, documents the double-crossing lives of those trading in khat or ‘veve’, a mildly narcotic local crop. From Moroccan director Abdellah Taia comes Salvation Army, an unflinchingly poetic study of a young Arab man grappling with notions of family and sexuality. Then, there’s the highly anticipated film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun set against the difficulties of post-independence Nigeria.
Coz Ov Moni 2: FOKN Revenge billed as ‘the world’s second first pidgin musical’ is a Ghanaian hop-hop opera from rap duo, the FOKN Bois, while B for Boy tells the story of how a Nigerian woman’s life is corrupted by the forces of patriarchy and tradition.
