The eighth edition of the South African Film Festival will present 33 short and feature films online across both countries, supported by a small programme of cinema screenings.
Auckland is the only NZ centre getting a cinema outing, and that’s for a single feature, The Heart is a Muscle.
Embracing Mandela Month & 30 Years of South African Democracy.
The South African Film Festival 2026 (SAFF 2026) leads into Mandela Month, celebrating 30 years of democracy in South Africa.
Festival Director Ricky Human said, “Having our festival screen during Mandela Month is the perfect moment for these stories. South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders share deep historical and cultural parallels, and a hunger for impactful, creative cinema.”
Headlining the festival is internationally acclaimed Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (top image), the directorial debut of Embeth Davidtz, adapted from the bestselling memoir set in Zimbabwe during the 1980 Independence War. Named among The Guardian and IndieWire’s Best Films of 2025 after premieres at Toronto and Telluride.
Further festival highlights include the ANZ premiere of Pangolin: Journey to Freedom, a wildlife documentary that follows an orphaned pangolin named Kosha revealing groundbreaking insights on the world’s most trafficked animal; The Heart Is a Muscle, South Africa’s 2025 Academy Awards submission and winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Berlin; Lucky Fish, Opening Film of the 2025 Durban International Film Festival; and box-office smash My F*k Marelize, born from a viral 2019 video and now the highest-grossing Afrikaans film in more than a decade.
Music runs through the program with Squashbox, a five-time winner at Sydney’s SF3 Festival, including Best Film and Best Cinematography, tracing an unlikely duo reviving the traditional sounds of Maskandi music, which will open the festival with Lucky Fish.
Opera lovers can enjoy a filmed AIDA featuring an all-South African cast and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra in a futuristic reimagining of Verdi’s classic.
SAFF runs 21 June – 26 July. Full programme details are here. Tickets for the 26 June screening in Auckland are here.
