Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Fest back for 5th year

The fifth annual Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (DGLFF) takes place from Thursday 18 June to Friday 26 June at the KZNSA Gallery.

The festival is a partner to Durban Pride week (which will host its parade on the closing night, Saturday 27 June), and remains a key element of Ethekwini’s pink celebrations.

DGLFF will feature free morning public workshops and lunchtime screenings, afternoon filmmaker workshops and evening screenings; including feature films, documentaries and short films.

This year sees a retrospective of Canadian gay filmmaker Charlie David’s recent films Mulligans (2009), Scenes From A Gay Marriage (2012), More Scenes From A Gay Marriage (2014) and the pink African première of his latest film Paternity Leave (2015), with Chris Salvatore (Eating Out series).

Two of his powerful documentaries, Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride (2009) and Positive Youth (2013), will also be screened

David will be a guest of the festival, thanks to the support of the Canadian High Commission in Pretoria, and will conduct filmmaking workshops for emerging LGBTI filmmakers.

American filmmaker Tanner Barklow (the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary Invisible War) and Israeli counterpart Gil Kofman will also share their wonderful new film Lost in the White City.

It stars Thomas Dekker as a bisexual experimental filmmaker on a soul-searching vacation with his girlfriend in Tel Aviv when a handsome Israeli drives a sexual wedge between the couple.

Other films to look forward to are A Reunion (USA/2014), a gay road trip movie that brings two estranged friends back together on a journey to attend their alma mater reunion in Chicago, and Shadows of Yesterday (Philippines/2014), a drama about a growing gay romance during student uprisings that pit love and principles against ideology.

DGLFF will further host the world première of a new South African lesbian drama, My Name is Rose, a story of forced marriage, African tradition and newly discovered love between two young African women coming to terms with a patriarchal society.

The film will screen on Friday 19 June at 7pm. Starring Enoch Mnguni, Slindile Dlamini and Zenele Mazibuko, My Name is Rose looks at the emerging sexuality of a young Zulu princess in rural KZN who flees to Durban to avoid being ‘sold’ to an older chief for 40 cattle.

Filmmakers Mlungisi Msomi and Sekara Mafisa will attend the première as guests of the festival.

In addition, more than a dozen international short films and deeply moving documentaries will be included in the eight day festival.

The full schedule will be available from 1 June. Tickets for main screenings are from R30 per person and special package rates are available. Visit www.dglff.org.za for more information.