Pablo Berger’s Spanish foreign language Oscar submission Blancanieves and Paul Andrew Williams’ Unfinished Song will bookend the festival as organisers announced the galas, premieres and New Visions / New Voices strands.

“We’re delighted to once again be offering up such a broad and diverse line up of exceptional international cinema at the festival,” said festival director Darryl Macdonald. “Best of all, among these 180 accomplished new films are 63 debut features by first-time filmmakers, heralding an injection of fresh, audacious talent into the lifeblood of contemporary world cinema.

“I’m particularly pleased to be presenting Unfinished Song for our Closing Night Screening. It’s a huge crowd-pleaser with a wonderful central performance by Terence Stamp, who will be joining us for the closing night fête, at its core.”

“I’m really excited to be opening this year’s PSIFF with Blancanieves, a wildly original, silent movie version of Snow White – updated to the 1920s, and with Blancanieves displaying her natural gifts as a matador,” said artistic director Helen du Toit. “Not only is this Spanish submission for the foreign language Oscar a brilliant film (which is, after all, what we’re all about), but director Pablo Berger feels like one of our own.

“His short films Trevor and Truth And Beauty won Best Comedy here in 1995, and his first feature Torremolinos ‘73 won our New Voices/New Visions competition in 2004.”

The Premieres section includes The Hypnotist, Purge, Jews Of Egypt and Yema.

New Voices / New Visions features 7 Boxes, The Cleaner, I Belong and Playground Chronicles.

The festival is set to run from Jan 3-14. For the full line-up visit the official website.

Topics