Ghana missing in Durban International Film Festival

Questions are being raised as to whether Ghanaian films will have a representation at this year’s edition of the Durban International Film Festival.

The Durban International Film Festival is South Africa’s largest and longest-running film festival organised by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

It is supported by the National Film and Video Foundation, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism, KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission, City of Durban, German Embassy, Goethe Institute, Industrial Development Corporation, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Arts and Culture and a range of other valued partners.

This year’s event is the 35th of its kind and as usual it is scheduled to take place from July 17 to 27, 2014, in South Africa’s beautiful city of Durban.

Last year, Ghanaian filmmaker Anita Afonu was the only personality from Ghana nominated among other top African filmmakers to take part in the 34th edition of the festival. That event had South African film ‘Of Good Report’ stirring up controversies around the world.

The forthcoming 10-day celebration of world class cinema will see over 200 screenings of new films from South Africa, the continent and the world, with a number of world premiere screenings of local and international films.

But the preliminary list of films that will be screened does not give any hope that a Ghanaian film will be screened though it may be too early to conclude.

Among the list of films that will be screened, according to South Africa reports, are “Khalo Matabane’s Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, Mickey Dube’s One Humanity, Annalet Steenkamp’s I, Afrikaner, Carey Mackenzie’s Cold Harbour, Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice and Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth’s 20 000 Days on Earth, to name just a few.”