The 27th edition of the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival returns from 19 to 29 June 2025, promising a programme of over 40 films from across the globe that grapple with some of the most urgent social, political, and environmental issues of our time.

This year’s festival arrives with the assertion that «the world has never been this desperate to be documented.» With themes that probe the intersection of #activism, #technology, #memory, and #power, Encounters 2025 is positioning itself as both a cinematic and civic event.

Opening the festival is How to Build a Library by Maia Lekow and Christopher King, following two Kenyan women revitalizing a neglected library into a thriving cultural hub.

Films are grouped into five thematic collections:

• The Frightening Reality of Now addresses global instability, #climate collapse, and unchecked technological advancement. Highlights include Shifting Baselines, which critiques Elon Musk’s SpaceX expansion in Texas, and The Thinking Game, a look at the race to develop artificial general intelligence.
• Ways of Learning interrogates the politics of education. The Shadow Scholars exposes Kenya’s underground academic ghostwriting industry, while Mothers of Chibok reflects on the decade-long struggle for education following the 2014 #Boko Haram# abductions in Nigeria.
• Agency – Standing up to Power offers stories of resistance. Union tracks Amazon warehouse workers’ efforts to unionize, while Mr Nobody Against Putin captures dissent inside a Russian school repurposed for military recruitment.
• Memory, Trauma and Identity explores how history haunts the present. Albie: A Strange Alchemy honors anti-apartheid jurist Albie Sachs, while Matabeleland considers ancestral grief in postcolonial Zimbabwe.
• The Art and Impact celebrates art’s power to inspire change. The Walk follows the symbolic journey of Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet representing child refugees, and Sam Nzima: A Journey Through His Lens revisits the iconic photo of #Hector Pietersen# taken during the 1976 #Soweto uprising.

Screenings will take place at the Labia Theatre and V&A Waterfront Ster-Kinekor in Cape Town, and The Bioscope and The Zone @ Rosebank in Johannesburg.

Find more information on the complete Encounters 2025 lineup – HERE