Encounters South African International Documentary Festival returns for its 28th edition from 4 to 14 June 2026, with screenings, masterclasses, panels and Q&As in Cape Town and Johannesburg, plus one venue in Pretoria.
The 2026 programme includes 58 films — 27 features and 31 shorts — drawn from 32 African and 26 international titles. The lineup includes 9 world premieres, 30 African premieres, 40 South African premieres, and 30 attached Q&As, panels and workshops. Five films are programmed under an "African Focus" strand.
Opening night is the South African premiere of Zipporah Nyaruri's "Truck Mama," an 85-minute Kenya–South Africa–Saudi Arabia–Netherlands co-production that had its world premiere at IDFA. The film follows Evaline, a 32-year-old mother of two and one of Kenya's few female long-haul truck drivers, as she pilots a 20-ton fuel tanker across East Africa's most dangerous routes.
Four South African feature documentaries will have world premieres at the festival. Adrian Van Wyk and Chris Kets's "Notes from the Underground" traces the history of Cape Town hip hop with Ready D, Isaac Mutant, and Mutant's daughter Lyrix. Mmabatho Montsho's "Marxism & Period Pains" examines women's experience of menstruation within the gendered structures of capitalism. Pat van Heerden and Edwin Wes's "The Hour After Midnight" investigates the death in detention of trade unionist Dr Neil Aggett under apartheid. Elan Gamaker's "My Father's Son" follows two estranged South African brothers — one Jewish, one Black — meeting for the first time over Zoom.
Two of the festival's African premieres are among five films Variety recently named early Oscar contenders for Best Documentary. "TUTU," a portrait of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, won the 2026 Berlin Peace Film Prize. "Nuisance Bear" follows an adolescent polar bear encroaching on a town as his Arctic habitat disappears; it won the 2026 Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
The festival will also host the African premieres of "American Doctor," winner of the 2026 Hot Docs Audience Prize, which follows three U.S. doctors — a Palestinian, a Jew, and a Zoroastrian — working in Gaza, and "Everybody to Kenmure Street," winner of the 2026 Sundance Civil Resistance Prize, which documents a Glasgow community's effort to stop the deportation of two neighbours in May 2021.
Other international features include "Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment," about safety concerns with Tesla's self-driving algorithms; "The Eyes of Ghana," directed by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, about Chris Hesse, cinematographer to Kwame Nkrumah; Alex Gibney's "Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie," about the Booker Prize-winning author's recovery from the 2022 attack on his life; and "Amadou & Mariam – The Blind Couple From Mali," which follows the Malian musical couple until Amadou Bagayoko's death in 2025 at age 70.
The lineup includes several award-winning films about African subjects and political histories. "The Woman Who Poked the Leopard," winner of the Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness at DokLeipzig, follows Ugandan poet and activist Stella Nyanzi's opposition to President Yoweri Museveni. "Amilcar," about Cape Verdean–Bissau-Guinean revolutionary Amílcar Cabral, won the Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution in IDFA's Envision Competition. "Life After Siham," in which Namir Abdel Messeeh turns to cinema after his mother's death, was named Best Arab Documentary at El Gouna. "Kikuyu Land" follows one man's attempt to claim restitution for land taken from his family during British colonial rule in Kenya. "My Father and Qaddafi" follows director Jihan as she retraces the disappearance of her father, Libyan diplomat Mansur Kikhia. Other African titles include Tshililo wa ha Muzila's "A Little Blackman from the Congo," "Fantastique" (Guinea), "Robots" (Johannesburg), and "Tristan Forever" (Tristan da Cunha).
Returning Encounters filmmakers include Nicole Shafer, who won the Encounters Audience Prize for "Buddha in Africa" and returns with "Mama-Demic," about a South African maternity doctor during COVID-19, and Sinéad O'Shea, whose "Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story" played sold-out screenings last year, with "All About the Money," a portrait of a wealthy American heir who becomes a communist.
The short-film programme is arranged into eight blocks: "Acts of Intervention" (5 films), "Salt of the Earth" (4), "Thank you for being" (4), "The Body Remembers" (3), "Unlearning the Script" (3), "When Things Fall Apart" (4), "Where Grief Settles" (2), and "Where We Gather" (6).
Screenings will be held at the Labia Theatre, V&A Waterfront Ster-Kinekor, Bertha House Mowbray, and Bertha Movie House in Khayelitsha in Cape Town; The Bioscope, Rosebank Nouveau, Ster-Kinekor Sandton, and Ster-Kinekor Southgate in Johannesburg; and Brooklyn Commercial in Pretoria.
The industry programme includes 6 masterclasses and 8 panels. Confirmed events include "Elon Musk Unveiled: Producing Insights with Yara Heuck Costa" on 5 June at the University of Cape Town TV Studio; "Women as Workers and Warriors" on 5 June at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape; "Beginnings and Openings" on 6 June at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg; "Cutting for Character: Masterclass with Sam Pollard & Paul Trewartha" on 8 June in Cape Town and 10 June in Johannesburg; a NETFLIX Masterclass with Mark Lewis online on 12 June; and "How to Build a Film in the First Person: Masterclass with Miguel Eek" on 13 June at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg.