By Philip Iglauer

The South African Embassy will hold a film festival April 25-26 as part of celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

South African film Retribution screens at 6:00 p.m. April 25 and Skin at 11:00 a.m. April 26 for free to the general public at the Korean Film Archive’s Movie Theater 2. Just come and enjoy South African cinema.

A private showing of Drum will screen in the evening on the last day of the festival for a special audience VIPs and dignitaries.

“The South African Film Festival shows the spectrum of cooperation countries can have beyond the usual issues of trade and commerce, the importance of cultural exchanges,” said Mabet van Rensburg, counsellor and deputy chief of mission of the South African Embassy in Korea.

Released in August last year, Retribution is a suspense thriller by director Mukunda Michael Dewil about a retired judge who helps a lost hiker in the wilderness only to discover the hiker is in fact in search of revenge that starts with the killing of the judge’s beloved pet dog.

Skin (2009) tells the true story of Sandra Liang’s struggle in 1970s Apartheid South Africa and her long legal battle over her racial classification as “colored” from initially being considered “white.”

She also struggles to reconcile her communal and racial identity with her white family who reject her relationship with a black man. The film also examines her hard fought reconciliation with her mother after a lifetime of estrangement.