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The Vancouver South African Film Festival swings into its eighth year with perhaps the strongest lineup of films the Straight has yet seen from this small but lovingly curated event. Opener Beyond the River sets the bar high for the rest of the three-day fest. “It’s a feel-good film,” cofounder David Chudnovsky tells the Straight. “But in a very subtle way it speaks to the current racial divide and relationships in South Africa without being didactic.”

The four other titles we’ve picked below demonstrate an equally passionate engagement with the region’s history and evolution, triumphing as popular art without romanticizing, gilding, or flinching from the truth. Hollywood, take note.

Beyond the River

In Craig Frei­mond’s precariously balanced film, based on a true story, a talented kid from the ghetto teams with an initially reluctant white schoolteacher to take on the Dusi Canoe Marathon, an annual three-day competition held in Zululand. Here we have a predictable, manipulative, clichéd setup peppered with melodrama—that somehow works beautifully. It’s ravishing to look at, but the film’s greatest asset is the conviction brought by leads Grant Swanby and Lemogang Tsipa to two tarnished heroes quietly at war with themselves and their own assumed destinies. Rousing, to say the least. March 23 (7 p.m.)

Video of Beyond the River Official Trailer (2017)

Wonder Boy for President

In a performance that would land him a contract with Comedy Central over on this side of the world, Kagiso Lediga plays the title character in John Barker’s mockumentary about a gregarious man-child who can’t quite square himself with the corruption he’s being asked to accept by two hopelessly (and hilariously) filthy ANC officials, having been plucked from obscurity and floated as a presidential candidate. The film shoots wide as political satire—its basic appeal for recognizable humans over machine-polished technocrats aside—but as entertainment, Wonder Boy wins in a landslide. Stick around for a Skype chat with director Barker. March 24 (4 p.m.)

Video of ‘Wonder Boy for President’ Trailer

Inxeba (The Wound)

Extremely controversial and definitely hot to the touch, John Trengove’s film is set inside the secret manhood rites of the Xhosa people. A volatile atmosphere of aggression, fear, and reverence presides in this all-male brew—and also a thin vein of homoeroticism, which is why Xolani and Vija keep returning as “caregivers”, to continue their clandestine affair while maybe scoping out some willing “initiates”. Meanwhile, a sullen and privileged city boy gets the blood racing on both sides of the sex/violence equation. Even without the film’s shocking and heartbreaking finish, Inxeba cuts as deep as the ritual wounds of circumcision that Trengove’s camera, mercifully, bathes in darkness. Consider all of this a huge recommendation. March 25 (11 a.m.)

Video of The Wound (Inxeba) Trailer 2017 | Dir: John Trengove | South Africa

Liyana

The documentary side of this enchanting, if unsentimental, Swazi feature concerns a handful of scrappily engaging orphans in a storytelling workshop with poet Gcina Mhlophe. Their experiences, which are routinely horrifying, bleed into the animated adventures of a preteen girl facing down child-nappers, the loss of family to AIDS, and one ferocious, near supernatural beast. A total joy visually, Liyana asks a lot of its intended young audience, but the challenges presented are worth taking. Mhlophe will attend for a postscreening Q&A. March 25 (3:30 p.m.)

An Act of Defiance

It takes the expected dramatic licence, but this closing-night Afrikaans-language film is a sturdy retelling of lawyer Bram Fischer’s story. The well-educated scion of an establishment family was a secret communist and ANC member who ended up defending Nelson Mandela at the famed Rivonia trial, putting his double agency and clandestine activism in an unthinkably dangerous place, something the film handles well. The suspense is further juiced by the depiction of security forces—sexually menacing Fischer’s teen daughter in one unforgettable scene—that probably only seems exaggerated to those of us who haven’t lived under the out-and-loving-it yoke of pure fascism. Ann Nicholson, imprisoned along with Bram Fischer, will be in attendance for a Q&A. March 25 (7 p.m.)

Video of AN ACT OF DEFIANCE Trailer

The Vancouver South African Film Festival takes place at SFU Woodward’s in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts from Friday to Sunday (March 23 to 25). More information is at the Vancouver South African Film Festival website.