To be announced – We love this film but the work to organise its screening is still in progress.

Set in Mitchell’s Plain one of Cape Town’s slums this intense spectacular social realist drama follows a mother Shirley Adams who struggles to rehabilitate her paralysed son Donovan, a victim of gun violence that left him paralysed from the neck down. Her husband has abandoned her leaving her to give up her work spending all her time caring for her son. With no income to support herself and her son she has resigned to surviving by handouts from her neighbours and by shoplifting occasionally. The power of this narrative lies in the choices, style and characterisation the debutant director Oliver Hermanus deploys in crafting this story. The emphasis is on the use of a hand held camera, which is kept very close to the face or behind the head of the protagonist who as Shirley Adams is excellently played by Denis Newman. Hermaus allows only momentary glimpses of the environment in which Shirley and her son inhabit and that you are in country that is still trying to come to terms with the challenges of race, class poverty and crime. This enables us to keep an unbroken intimacy with what is an insightful, heart warming and outstanding film.

Director: Oliver Hermanus
Writer: Stavros Pamballis, Oliver Hermanus
Cast: Denise Newman, Keenan Arrison
Country: South Africa-USA-UK
Year: 2009
Runtime: 92 min

To be announced – We love this film but the work to organise its screening is still in progress.

This feel-good offering with plenty of romance to go with the laughs, is a low budget road movie that took 19 days to shoot on a budget of 6m rand (£450,000), yet in less than two months it has become one of South Africa’s most successful films and has enjoyed unprecedented mass appeal since its release in South Africa.

Elvis leaves Johannesburg to pick up his best friend and his best man Tumi in Durban and so begin the race against time to be getting to his wedding. They suffer misadventures along the way to the wedding in Cape Town. Along the way the offer a lift to a heart broken British doctor Rose (played by Huddersfield born actress Jodie Walker) who had fled the altar after discovering her fiancée had been unfaithful to her. In Cape Town the beautiful Ayunda (Zandile Msutwana) is anxiously awaiting their arrival as well as having to deal with her mother’s wish for a traditional wedding and the unwanted attention of Tony the township boy turned flashy entrepreneur.

Director: Jann Turner
Writers: Jann Turner, Kenneth Nkosi, Rapulana Seiphemo
Cast: Rapulana Seiphemo, Kenneth Nkosi
Country: South Africa
Year: 2008
Runtime: 93 min

To be announced – We love this film but the work to organise its screening is still in progress.

Set in Durban South Africa and based on the experiences of the city’s Homeless children, My Secret Sky follows the story of ten-year-old Thembi and her eight-year-old brother Khwezi. They decide to journey to the city of Durban from their village with their only possession of a traditional Zulu mat made by their mother for a craft competition. Their mother had woven the mat in the hope of entering a competition encouraged by a white priest who had visited the village. But when they arrive in the big city they are confronted with a gang of street kids led by 12-year-old Chilli Bites. Chilli Bites befriends them and tells them of a friend who knows the priest. The friend who turns out to be a pimp whose only intent is to sell Thembi to people with the pervasive myth that sex with virgin cures AIDS takes them in. The director has coaxed some remarkable performances from his young cast particularly Sibahle Mkhabase who gives a raw and delicate quality to the film as ten year old Thembi.

Director: Madoda Ncayiyana
Writers: Julie Frederiske, Madoda Ncayiyana
Cast: Sobahle Mkhabase, Sibonelo Malinga
Country: South Africa
Year: 2008
Runtime:

Due to unforseen events, this film has been cancelled   

Sunday 29 November 2.00pm at Barbican – UK Première

A decade before the Western world entered a state of psychosis following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Algerian people were already suffering in their own land the devastating consequences of the terror inflicted by Islamic fundamentalists. In her first feature, actress turned director Belhadj bravely plunges back into one of the darkest episodes in Algerian history, entering the lives of resilient widow El Batoul and her daughters. A shattering story depicted with courage and perception by both cast and crew, this is one of the most powerful films on the effects of violence, especially on women, to come out of North Africa.

Director: Fatima Belhadj
Writer: Fatima Belhadj
Cast:
Country: Algeria
Year: 2007
Runtime: 100 min

To be announced – We love this film but the work to organise its screening is still in progress.

This light-hearted comedy has won numerous awards and has been a favourite with audiences wherever it played. Mounir, an overproud and cocky young man (played wonderfully by actor turned director Lyes Salem), would like to be taken more seriously in the village. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that his beloved younger sister suffers from narcolepsy. One night, frustrated and drunk, he announces to the village that his sister Rym is going to be married to a wealthy foreign businessman. Suddenly, he is being taken seriously…

Director: Lyes Salem
Writer: Lyes Salem
Cast: Lyes Salem , Rym Takoucht , Sarah Reguieg
Country: Algeria-France
Year: 2008
Runtime: 92 min