Encounters 2026 – Even Musk is to be seen

Review

13/06/2026

This is the final weekend of the Encounters International Documentary Film Festival. This year marked the first time in more than a decade that the festival — which usually takes place in Cape Town and Johannesburg — also hosted screenings in Pretoria, with the Ster-Kinekor at Brooklyn Mall serving as the venue.

Other cinemas screening the festival’s documentaries include:
Cape Town: Labia, Ster-Kinekor V&A Waterfront, Bertha Mowbray, and Bertha Khayelitsha. Johannesburg: The Bioscope, Rosebank Nouveau, Ster-Kinekor Sandton, Ster-Kinekor Southgate.

What makes Encounters special?

An Encounters board member, Odette Geldenhuys, says this year marks the 28th time that Encounters has taken place. According to her, it is a unique film festival because they screen only documentaries, in contrast to other local film festivals such as the Joburg Film Festival and the Durban International Film Festival, which mostly focus on fiction films. Geldenhuys further emphasises that most of the documentaries screened during this programme would never otherwise be distributed in South Africa — whether on television or in theatres. It is therefore a unique opportunity to see gems that you simply cannot watch anywhere else. For example, yours truly experienced the documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025) at Encounters last year, and this year it walked away with the honours as Best Feature Documentary at the Academy Awards (the Oscars).

What are some of the highlights we can still look forward to at Encounters this weekend?

Notes from the Underground (2026) is about Hip Hop in Cape Town, and how this tradition has been passed down from generation to generation.

Elon Musk: The Tesla Experiment (2026) takes an interesting look at the controversy surrounding the self-driving vehicles of the namesake Musk.

The documentary Tutu (2026) was produced from footage that two journalists filmed of Desmond Tutu over 20 years.

The Eyes of Ghana (2025) demonstrates the power that film holds as a medium and platform. The film contains archival footage shot in the first few years after Ghana gained independence from the United Kingdom.

We are all currently experiencing so many “heavy things”. Wouldn’t we rather go to the cinema to watch something that helps us “escape”?

Geldenhuys’s answer to this question is that all the documentaries have been made in such a way that you experience a message of hope while watching the film. There are people out there who are trying to make a positive difference. Even some of the heaviest documentaries have several light-hearted moments, while many of the others have so many comedic moments that you will often laugh out loud. “At a time when much of the content we consume on social media has poor production value, it is wonderful to relax and watch films that have been worked on for years,” Geldenhuys adds.

The final screenings of the Encounters Documentary Film Festival take place on Sunday, 15 June. Find more details here: https://encounters.co.za/films/

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Written by Anna-Marie Jansen van Vuuren

Professor Anna-Marie Jansen van Vuuren is a senior lecturer and research coordinator for the Film and Visual Communication, programme at the Faculty of Arts, at the Tshwane University of Technology. She specializes in research topics related to “identity” and “representation” in South African cinema—but in plain English: she loves movies, and she loves looking deeply at them.

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