The 31st Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) which is hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) based at UKZN took place recently. The festival kicked off on a chilly winter night at the Suncoast Supernova with the world premiere of the film State of Violence which stars Fana Mokoena and is directed by Khalo Matabane. This is a film which tells the story of a struggle hero whose dark past comes back to haunt him, and who finds himself forced to succumb to violence by recent events in his life.
The festival aims to present films and documentaries by both local film makers and well known acclaimed film makers from across the globe. This year's film festival also marked the 3rd Talent Campus Durban for young film makers, producers, directors, scriptwriters, actors, cinematographers, film critics and others related to the film industry from across the continent of Africa. Talent Campus is an initiative by the Berlin Film Festival in Germany which was introduced in the Durban Film festival programme three years ago. This year's Talent Campus saw 43 young, up and coming film makers, scriptwriters, and directors going on a 5 day intensive workshop on film producing. The young Talents came from all the corners of the African continent to learn as much as possible in their respective fields as regards film making.
The theme for this year's Talent Durban Campus was to focus on Africa at the same time unleashing the talent in 2010. With the enormous potential talent that the African continent possesses it came as no surprise that some of the films shown at this year's DIFF were made by previous Talents who were selected to participate in previous Talent Durban Campus and Berlinale Campus workshops. The Talents also attended numerous screenings of films and documentaries during the film festival to further explore the film industry in all genres.
"Without doubt programs such as the Talent Campus are most needed in our changing times of writing and film producing. It is a remarkable program and people involved in it should be commended", said Veronica Mahlaba, one of this year's participants from South Africa at Talent Campus, Durban.
The Durban Film festival closed with the film Infidel by Josh Appignanesi. Following this was a prestigious award ceremony held at Moyo restaurant, uShaka Marine World to honor those film makers who went all out to make sure that their films and documentaries are world class. The award ceremony saw the feature film, Life, Above All by Oliver Schmitz(Germany/South Africa) winning the award for Best South African Feature Film at this year's festival. The award for Best Feature Film overall went to The White Meadows (Iran), directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. Best Feature film won prize money of R50 000, and R25 000 went to the Best South African Feature Film.
