Jozi Film Festival: Short films 3

The Jozi Film Festival is an annual event that showcases the latest films made by South African and international filmmakers in one of Africa's most vibrant cities – Johannesburg. The fith Jozi Film Festival will highlight the very best in filmmaking, presenting a multi-genre slate of films from emerging and established filmmakers, exploring a broad range of topics that affect our communities and stir our hearts and minds.

The festival will also offer provocative Q&A sessions with the filmmakers in attendance, as well as workshops and networking events. Wrapping up the festival with an exciting Awards Ceremony.

A Way of Life, USA (24 mins)

Drama, Crime

DIR: Viraj Nayar

Carl Reed, a 27 year old single father and recently released ex convict struggles to find work before the week is up in order to pay his overbearing grandmother rent money before she kicks him out of the house. As his crunch for time nears its deadline, he is forced to choose between doing the right thing and doing what put him in jail in the first place.

Dancing With Monsters, Germany (10 mins)

Drama

DIR: Isabella Freilinger

A girl escaping her violent reality by imagining to be a superhero. A dancer haunted by memories of her wartime-past. An intriguing drama about the search for beauty despite a violently shattered past and present.

Zarah grows up in a world where dancing is forbidden and with distant gunfire as a chronically audible reminder of war. Despite this reality, she wants to protect her family. She becomes a Super-Power-Ninja-Ranger. A dance with her monsters starts, the same monsters which she still tries to escape from as a grown-up woman. Set in a fictive country, the film captures the effects of war in a most vulnerable and unique way.

Bon Voyage, Switzerland (20 mins)

Drama

DIR: Marc Wilkins

Jonas and Silvia are enjoying a wonderful sailing holiday in the Mediterranean sea. But while sailing through the night, far away from land, they discover an overloaded refugee boat, close to sinking. They are shocked, but too afraid to help. So they call the coast guards but lose sight of the boat in the darkness of the night. In the early morning they find themselves drifting through an ocean of dead bodies. The refugee boat has sunk. Jonas and Silvia manage to pull a few survivors out of the cold water: Syrians. This rescue marks the beginning of a dramatic conflict between the hopes and dreams of the refugees, and the fears of the holiday sailors.

Drop It, USA(10 mins)

Drama, Crime

DIR: Adam Hardy

A rookie cop struggles to live with his mistake to shoot an innocent man, while the brother of the victim tracks down the cop to kill him.

Officer John Paxton is a good guy. He graduated the police academy with flying colors, he helps old ladies cross the street with their groceries, and he has never fired a bullet. That is, until today, when Paxton ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, made a split-second decision, and killed an innocent man.

Soft Landings, SA (7 mins)

Family

DIR: Dewet van Rooyen

A seeming chance encounter between an aeroplane-obsessed young boy and an aging retired golfer reveals the depths that family will go to as they journey home.