As the Joburg Film Festival enters its 8th edition, it unfurls its cinematic banner under the evocative theme “Feel the Frame” while featuring three notable queer films.
This year’s programme – running from 3 to 8 March 2026 at various venues across the city – leans boldly into stories that pulse with emotion, identity, and defiance.
Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in the artistry, emotion, and vision of Africa’s leading filmmakers, alongside global voices whose stories resonate far beyond their borders.
Among this year’s standout selections are three queer films that offer distinct, powerful explorations of love, risk, and belonging. Together, they stretch across continents and timelines, reminding us that queer experiences are as varied as they are universal.
Dreamers: Love Against the System
Screenings: 06 Mar and 08 Mar 2026
Directed by Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, Dreamers is an intimate and urgent portrait of migration, resilience, and unexpected love.
Set within a UK removal centre, the film follows Isio, a Nigerian migrant who believes that playing by the rules is her only path to freedom.
That belief is tested when she meets her charismatic roommate Farah, who challenges her faith in a system that seems designed to fail her.
As Isio navigates the uncertainty of her asylum process, she finds herself drawn into Farah’s orbit and forms deep connections with a small circle of women inside the centre. What unfolds is a tender yet quietly defiant love story, where intimacy becomes an act of resistance.
Dreamers captures the emotional toll of waiting, the fragility of hope, and the ways in which love can endure even in the most restrictive spaces.
History of Sound: Echoes of Love and Longing
Screening: 04 Mar 2026
From acclaimed South African director Oliver Hermanus, History of Sound is a sweeping, melancholic exploration of connection and memory.
Starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, the film follows Lionel and David, two young men who meet at a music conservatory in 1917. Their shared passion for folk music sparks a bond that gradually deepens into romance.
Separated by World War I and reunited through a project to collect folk songs across rural New England, their relationship unfolds in quiet, intimate moments. Yet beneath the surface lies an unspoken tension between desire and societal expectation.
Lyrical and restrained, History of Sound reflects on what is preserved and what is lost, tracing how love can echo across time even when it cannot fully exist in the open.
Night Stage: Desire in the Spotlight
Screenings: 05 Mar and 07 Mar 2026
In Night Stage, Brazilian director Filipe Martzembacher delivers a darker, more provocative take on queer desire.
The film centres on a secret affair between an ambitious actor and a rising politician. As their relationship intensifies, they develop a shared fascination with risk, engaging in increasingly public encounters that blur the line between thrill and self-destruction.
Here, desire becomes performance, and intimacy becomes spectacle. The closer they move toward success and visibility, the more dangerous their private world becomes.
Night Stage is a tense, seductive exploration of ambition, vulnerability, and the cost of living and loving on the edge.
A Festival That Feels the Frame
This year’s selection of queer cinema at the Joburg Film Festival reflects a broader commitment to storytelling that is fearless and deeply human.
From detention centres to historic soundscapes to the electric charge of public desire, these films traverse vastly different worlds while remaining grounded in emotional truth.
They invite audiences not just to watch, but to feel, to sit with discomfort, recognise beauty in defiance, and witness love in its many forms.
Tickets are on sale through WebTickets.
Win Tickets!
MambaOnline is giving away 5 double tickets to the 6 March screening of Dreamers. To enter, simply email info@mambaonline.com with the phrase “I want to see Dreamers.” The competition closes on 4 March.
