DIFF26 | Themba | dir: Luthando Mngomezulu | 62mins
SC6 | Friday 24 July | 8pm
People grieve differently. This is the premise of Mngomezulu’s Themba. The entire film is two people grieving differently, and misunderstanding each other’s grief. There is little plot business.
bios at the Durban International Film Festival 2026
A rolling index of bios reviews, interviews, essays and festival notes from DIFF 2026.
This page will be updated throughout the festival.
In Hyènes, Djibril Diop Mambéty's 1992 masterpiece, a wealthy woman returns to her impoverished village offering unimaginable wealth on one condition: kill Dramaan Drameh, the local shopkeeper who betrayed her as a girl. No one wants to kill the man, but the presumption that someone will sparks off a wave of money lending, conspicuous spending, and deal making, until many of the villagers owe others for goods, credit, and favours, making the outcome inevitable.
an interview with Eldon van Aswegen, director of FOSTA
FOSTA follows both the story of DJ Fosta and Bridges For Music, from Fosta's time in prison to his discovery of Bridges, playing at Glastonbury, and building the Bridges For Music School in Langa. Along the way it takes in Fosta's musical legacy, embedded in the jazz traditions of Langa.
Following our review, van Aswegen talks to us, via email, about the film's journey to screen.
Reactionary Reviews | That Winter Fest | Sognage
There's a woman talking to the fence about the one time she took Ritalin, and it's still straight-edge early. This is the first sign that the word “fest” might still have some meaning. Everyone here seems to have recently done their laundry. Or had it done. And recently been to the salon, especially the mohawk guy.
DIFF26 | FOSTA (2026) | Directed by Eldon van Aswegen
Premiere | SC7: 5pm July 24
FOSTA is a document of our times. As a film it often hedges its bets, reflexively providing quick solutions after touching on the real issues in play.
While ostensibly about DJ Fosta's redemption story, the film often feels like a tale of the triumphs of Bridges For Music, an organisation that has for many years been organising workshops in Langa with big-name EDM headliners featuring at South African music festivals.
The bike slides out from under him, wet slick as he brakes too late, crossing Harrow to Hillbrow, both of them, James, and his girlfriend sliding into the path of an oncoming truck. He, protected by the bike, lost only his legs.
Reactionary Reviews | Black Math | Blood Sweat Sparkles
Black Math gloriously revel in not reinventing the wheel. Screamo, punk, rock n roll grunge, youth, whatever, attacked with gusto. Don't let the word Math fool you into thinking this is prog-rock. It's fucking progressive though. Blood, Sweat, Sparkles plunges onwards with relentless disregard.
After his arrest no-one mentioned him, he dropped out of our thoughts, except to mock that he had been arrested so easily. So dom. So fucking dom that Boyo.
Arrested in the golden afternoon sun clutching four meagre caps of smack, unga, nyaope whatever...
Not So Famous Last Words | Rev. David Herbert Allen | 1920ish – 1992
There is a memory of a photograph of my grandfather in short pants, on a sand dune, shirtless, laughing, but I cannot tell you where my grandfather served in the war, my mother used to be able to, but now she talks mostly about the farm.