African Finance Rising, Distribution Doldrums and Other Hot-Button Topics on the Agenda at This Year’s Durban FilmMart

By Christopher Vourlias

Christopher Vourlias

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As the fall festival season winds down, the temperature will be heating up next month in Durban, South Africa, where the 17th Durban FilmMart takes place from Oct. 9 – 12. This year’s event arrives amid surging hopes but lingering anxieties for an African industry at a crossroads.

For the continent’s filmmakers, there’s plenty of cause for optimism. Long marginalized or pigeonholed by festival programmers, African cinema has achieved an undeniable foothold in the main programming strands of A-class fests. Established auteurs are regularly joined on the red carpet by a rambunctious cohort of newcomers who are pushing African filmmaking in new and exhilarating directions, such as South African directors Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar, the duo behind last year’s Rotterdam-winning docudrama “Variations on a Theme.”

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