Movie lovers mark cinema milestones
“LIGHTS, camera, Africa” read a banner at the opening of the Durban International Film Festival on Thursday night.
Most appropriate, I thought, for the longestrunning, most prestigious film festival in Africa.
The entrance to the Suncoast cinema was logjammed with movie lovers, filmmakers, celebrities, photographers and journalists.
This is a significant year — 20 years of democracy (the theme of this year’s festival), 35 years of the festival and 75 years since AB Moosa snr founded the Avalon Cinema.
AB Moosa jnr, CEO of the Avalon Group, South Africa’s largest and oldest independent cinema and entertainment company, gave a touching tribute to his grandfather and father, who endured oppressive measures by the apartheid government.
The movie chosen to open the festival was the local production Hard to Get.
And hard to get to it was, with speeches beforehand that went on for far too long.
Scheduled to begin at 7pm, the screening began almost two hours late.
Durban’s deputy mayor, Nomvuzo Shabalala, took a rather large slice of the time pie and used some of it to berate the festival organisers for not having a big eThekweni banner draped across the stage.
But that was a minor quibble. It was well worth the wait and the palpable excitement of first-time director Zee Ntuli and co- producer Junaid Ahmed was infectious.
“I can’t do this again,” said Ahmed. “I can’t spend hours sucking in my stomach for the cameras.”
The festival is on at more than nine venues until July 27. For more information, go to durbanfilmfest.co.za