kykNET’s 10th Silwerskerm Film Festival will be hitting Cape Town screens from 23 to 26 March. The event is loaded with an impressive list of diverse and award-winning films. Besides the local feature film premiers and brand-new local short films in competition, the festival also includes a sizzling slate of recent films that have garnered widespread international recognition.
Among these existing works is the 2022 Oscar-nominated documentary Writing with Fire and South African filmmaker Phumi Morare’s 2022 Student Academy winning short film Lakutshon’ Ilanga (When the Sun Sets).
Writing with Fire presented by Encounters, will be screened in the Theatre on the Bay at 11am on Friday, 25 March, and on the festival’s online programme on Saturday, 26 March at 7pm. This means that everyone who has registered for the virtual festival will be able to watch the first Indian film to be nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary just three days before this year’s Oscar winners are announced.
This inspiring documentary, highlighting Khabar Lahariya, the only newspaper in India run by Dalit women (women belonging to an oppressed caste), has already garnered 21 gongs at prestigious award ceremonies across the globe. Its great festival run started with its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award and the Special Jury Award. Thereafter, the world’s most prominent critics and international newspapers have not stopped raving about the inspiring story of the influential female journalists who broke traditions with their smartphones in a cluttered news environment.
With the exclusion of Writing with Fire, all the films that are not eligible for the Silwerskerm Festival Awards will also be available on a video-on-demand offering on the festival’s website this year. The video-on-demand service will run from Wednesday, 23 March, at 7pm, until midnight on Saturday, 26 March (Note: The films screened in the Rotunda, will also be on the main online programme for registered viewers. Films out of competition screened in the Theatre on the Bay, however, will only be available online as ticketed video-on-demand features ).
These three films are available online on the main programme as well as in video-on-demand format:
1. Lakuthson’ Ilanga
In addition to winning the Student Academy Award for Best Narrative, Lakuthson’ Ilanga raked in the HBO Short Film Award at the 2021 American Black Festival, an Image Award for Outstanding Short Form at the 2022 NACCP Image Awards, and the Jury Prize for Outstanding International Narrative Short at the 2021 Washington DC Shorts Film Festival. Inspired by actual events and written and directed by Phumi Morare, it tells the story of a young black nurse in 1985 apartheid South Africa who must face her worst fears when she learns that her activist younger brother may be in danger when he doesn’t return after school. The film was also shortlisted for a 2022 Oscar.
2. What Did You Dream?
Written and directed by Karabo Lediga, this short film scooped the Best African Short Film Award at the Durban International Festival and received several nominations at international short film festivals such as the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival and Palm Springs International ShortFest. Set in 1990, What Did You Dream? tells the story of the 11-year-old Boipelo, who will soon be attending a multiracial school for the first time and is spending the summer holidays at her grandmother Koko’s house in Atteridgeville. There, Boipelo becomes obsessed with the fact that, unlike her two cousins, she can no longer remember her dreams. South African acting legend Connie Chiume stars as grandma Koko.
3. #WeAreDyingHere
Produced by Bianca Schmitz of Optical Films and Siphokazi Jonas of Wrestling Dawn Arts, in association with the Kolisi Foundation, #WeAreDyingHere chronicles the journey of three soldiers forced to survive a war that they did not choose – the war against women’s bodies. This short film is based on a critically acclaimed stage performance which Time Out New York regarded as one of the best productions to stream during lockdown in July 2020. Writer Siphokazi Jonas, poet and co-writer Hope Neshivhambe, and musician Babalwa Makwete reprise their roles. #WeAreDyingHere premiered at the Pan African Film Festival in the US and won the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Festival’s Spirit Award in 2021.
The registration fee for the online 10th kykNET Silwerskerm festival is R190, which will be donated to the Tribuo Fund. Register here.
For more information on video-on-demand films and screening times, see the Silverskermfees website and full programme here.
Also read:
A theatre guide to 3 must-see productions in Cape Town this month
Picture: Unsplash