WOW × DIFF 2026 – staging – Durban International Film Festival

Durban International Film Festival
Wales One World Film Festival

The Durban International Film Festival is proud to continue its curatorial partnership with the Wales One World (WOW) Film Festival through the DIFF x WOW Shorts Package, a cultural short film exchange supported by the British Council’s Festival Connects Fund. The collaboration brings together filmmakers from South Africa and Wales through a shared programme of short films presented across both festivals, strengthening international dialogue and creating new opportunities for Welsh and South African filmmakers to connect with global audiences.

The partnership first launched earlier this year at the WOW Film Festival in Wales, where three South African films from DIFF’s previous edition screened internationally as part of the exchange programme.

This package was carefully co-curated and selected by WOW’s Festival Director, Annita Nitsaidou, and DIFF’s Programme Coordinator, Helene Naicker.

All the shorts selected for this package are in competition for Best Short Film and Best South African Short Film, which is an Oscar-Qualifying Award.

Screenings:

Suncoast CineCentre – 26 July at 13:00

K-CAP – 28 July at 12:00 (free screening).

BUTTY

Directed By: Liz Cartwright

United Kingdom, 2025, 8 min, English with Subtitles

An awkward father-daughter relationship told through bacon butties.

FLOCK

Directed By: Mac Nixon

United Kingdom, 2025, 20 min, English, Welsh with Subtitles

When the sheep population of a tight-knit farming community mysteriously vanishes an elderly shepherd becomes the target of suspicion and anger when his meagre flock are miraculously untouched by this freak event.

MARI LEWD

Directed By: Charlie Grayson

United Kingdom, 2025, 10 min, English, Welsh with Subtitles

An ancient tradition from South Wales. The MARI LWYD. A short documentary from the perspective of the very beings that arrive with the Mari Lwyd every winter solstice.

PERCEPTION

Directed By: Miselwa Ngamlana

South Africa, 2026, 9 min, English, Xhosa with Subtitles

Perception follows 18-year-old Ace as he drifts through Johannesburg, surviving on handouts and addiction. After scoring nyaope, Ace escapes into an animated fantasy, imagining the life he might’ve lived, raised in a loving home, excelling as a tennis star, and embraced by a mother’s unconditional belief. Coming down from his high, he is thrust back into the unforgiving streets. The film interrogates empathy and exploitation, asking audiences to reconsider how they see those living with addiction as disposable spectacles or as human beings deserving of dignity and care.

VIMBA 2

Directed By:Monde Gumede

South Africa, 2025, 9 min, English, isiZulu with Subtitles

Set against the polished absurdity of Johannesburg’s Latitudes Art Fair, VIMBA! unfolds like a Ruben Östlund satire relocated to the cultural contradictions of contemporary South Africa. When a boozy street surfer is mistaken for a radical conceptual artist, he stumbles into an unlikely artworld hustle that spirals into an unholy trinity of class, commerce, and postcolonial confusion. A wealthy European buyer becomes enamoured with what she believes is a provocative installation of a discarded Black Label beer bottle. The curator, torn between integrity and opportunity, conspires with the accidental artist to sell the myth back to the market that created it. It’s not moral outrage that drives the film, but mischief.