It’s a quiet week at the movies for South Africans, with just three new feature debuts. If you’re in Johannesburg or Cape Town, though, you can check out the 12th European Film Festival South Africa. Meanwhile, the results of the Cape Town edition of the 48 Hour Film Project will be screening at the V&A Ster Kinekor. Finally, across the nation, modern classic romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally is the week’s Throwback Cinema release at select SKs.
Maybe it’s so quiet at cinemas because nobody wanted to open against Tron: Ares, the next installment in the cult sci-fi action franchise. This time, though, humans aren’t entering the digital space. The programs are coming to our reality instead. Nine Inch Nails follows the lead of Daft Punk to provide a pumping soundtrack for this all-new adventure, where highly sophisticated program, Ares (Jared Leto) is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission. Also in the cast are Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Gillian Anderson and Jodie Turner-Smith, with Jeff Bridges appearing as well. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’s Joachim Rønning directs.
It’s Halloween month, so you can expect scary films and thrillers in the coming weeks. Like acclaimed South African-made Hen. Having already released as part of this year’s Silwerskermfees, where it won Best Screenplay, Best Sound Design, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Makeup and Hair, Best Costume Design, Best Director (Nico Scheepers) and Best Actor (Stian Bam), now more people can watch this Afrikaans-language psychological horror tale shot in black and white.
Living in the isolated veld, farmer Dawid discovers a feral boy, Lukas, hidden in a chest following a family massacre. Driven by duty, Dawid and his wife, Hanna, take the boy in, only to open the door to an inexplicable curse of madness and despair.
To cater for the school holiday crowd, at Ster Kinekor cinemas, you can find Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s Art World Tales. This 44th film in the animated movie series sees Nobita, Doraemon and their friends use a special gadget to enter the medieval European world shown on a painting fragment. There, in the Principality of Artoria, they’re recruited by a mysterious girl named Claire to find a legendary jewel, only to find themselves caught up in a prophesy about the demise of this universe. In Japanese with English subtitles.