22 September 2026 · Reporting checked against the linked sources below.
The thirteenth European Film Festival South Africa is underway until 27 September, bringing twelve films from twelve countries to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria, alongside an online streaming component. The programme is international, but the question it raises is very local: what is a film festival for when almost every screen in the house can already summon thousands of movies?
One answer is curation. The 2026 selection is organised around family, memory, belonging, resilience and the ways the past keeps shaping the present. The programme includes established filmmakers and newer voices, with films that have travelled through Cannes, Venice, Berlin and other major festival circuits.
There are also direct bridges back to this part of the world. Aquí, from Portugal, adapts the Jesus trilogy by South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. My Father’s Shadow, the BAFTA-winning debut by British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr, brings another African diasporic perspective into a programme that is nominally European but interested in stories that exceed borders.
Festivals create a different kind of attention from streaming. A title is not simply another thumbnail competing with an algorithm. It arrives with a programme note, a time, a venue and often a conversation around it. The inconvenience is part of the value: you choose, travel, sit down and give the work your attention.
That matters for South African film culture. Independent cinemas and festivals remain important discovery engines for work that may never receive a wide commercial release. They also create temporary communities around cinema — people encountering the same film at the same time, then carrying the argument into foyers, restaurants, group chats and future viewing choices.
The European Film Festival is not a solution to the pressures facing cinemas. But its multi-city format is a reminder that the big screen still has a role when it behaves less like a content warehouse and more like a cultural meeting place. In an age of infinite choice, a strong point of view may be the most valuable thing a festival can offer.
