Page 51 - DIFF PROGRAMME 2024

I, CHINESE
2
Keith Leung, United States, 2023, 14 min, English, Yue Chinese (Cantonese) with English subtitles
23 JULY 17:15 SUNCOAST 7 27 JULY 14:00 GATEWAY 8
Ken Wong is an influencer famous for his racist Chinese impressions. He keeps his thick accent, oriental robe, and rice hat, an exaggerated impression of his father, a secret. While filming a video at a grocery store, he is caught off guard by a Chinese man and his young daughter watching him. Despite a wave of self-consciousness, he disregards them. Later, at dinner with his father he recognises them as a distant uncle and cousin. Thrust into a crisis of reputation and identity, he must prevent his father from learning about his behaviour and face what it really means to be Chinese.
In a patriarchal parallel world where men are the ones who fall pregnant, Johanna Klüger is facing a charge of causing the unwanted pregnancy of Maximilian Muster. To avoid court, they attend a court-ordered mediation. As the young mother who has been appointed as the mediator attempts to resolve a settlement the murky implications of the regulations emerge. The reversal of roles and the ensuing hypocrisy reveal the unique challenges faced by women who must deal with unwanted pregnancies. The legal implications of ending a pregnancy and the consequences thereof are vastly different for men and women.
Manqoba is a widower who still struggles with feelings of denial and anger towards the end of the cultural grieving period for his late wife Nokuthula. He finds solitude in a virtual reality device that allows him to remember his time with his deceased wife and negate the responsibility that awaits him in the real world. Unfortunately, his increasing dependence on an alternative reality poses a challenge to his engagement with reality.
PARAGRAPH 96
3
Sophie Maresch, Ivana Vlasich, Austria, 2023, 12 min, German with English subtitles
24 JULY 17:00 SUNCOAST 8 28 JULY 14:00 SUNCOAST 7
REBOOTING MEMORY
4
Regopotswe Matshelo, Omolemo Molefe, South Africa, 2023, 24 min, Zulu with English subtitles
25 JULY 17:00 SUNCOAST 7 28 JULY 14:30 GATEWAY 9
45TH DURBAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 49