South Africa's longest running and biggest festival, the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), has moved into a new time-slot between 23 July and 3 August. The 29th edition of DIFF promises some 300 screenings in all genres across Durban and its surrounding communities during its 12-day run.

According to festival manager Nashen Moodley, one of the advantages of the new time slot is that in its previous end-of-June date, communication and negotiation with distributors was compromised because they were so heavily preoccupied with the Cannes Film Festival. "The 29th edition will now fall outside school and university exam time and this also opens up possibilities for new audience development initiatives to broaden DIFF's reach," explained Moodley.

Both Moodley and festival director Peter Rorvik attended the recent Cannes Film Festival, supported by the French Embassy, where they finalised the last few films of a programme that is expected to include around 85 feature films, 40 documentaries and 40 short films.

The opening night film will be the African premiere of Ralph Ziman's Jerusalema (formerly titled Jerusalem Entjha), an intriguing gangster drama set in Johannesburg. Other South African films include Zimbabwe, the latest film from Oscar nominee Darrell James Roodt (Yesterday), The World Unseen, Shamim Sarif's moving 1950s drama with Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth, and uMalusi, directed by Mlandu Sikwebu and produced by Jahmil XT Qubeka, which will have its world premiere at the festival.

Read more in the June 2008 issue of Screen Africa