South African Cinema Market Targets September Revenue Surge with European Festival Draw

A substantial slate of theatrical releases, anchored by two major programming events, reaches South African cinema screens in September, with the 13th European Film Festival South Africa and a sequence of independent and studio titles shaping the month’s competitive landscape.

The opening weekend of 4 and 5 September features Nico Scheepers’ Landmyn, a meditative exploration of generational fracture and endurance. The film situates its examination of family and community patterns within a stark coastal landscape, employing observational filmmaking to invite reflection on how wounds persist, closeness is sought, and instability shapes shared human experience. The same dates bring In Idiots, a crime-comedy directed by Macon Blair and starring Dave Franco, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Mason Thames, Kiernan Shipka, Killer Mike Render, Nicholas Braun, and Peter Dinklage. The narrative follows two drivers transporting a wealthy teenager to rehab, a simple assignment that unravels into chaos as their passenger draws them into drugs, danger, and criminal entanglement.

Additional reference context is available at https://www.bizcommunity.com/article/european-film-festival-and-south-african-dramas-anchor-september-screenings-520290a.

The Fifth Step, a live-filmed theatrical production from London’s West End, screens 5, 6, and 8 September at V&A Waterfront and Rosebank Nouveau. The Olivier Award-winning play stars Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Dunkirk) and Emmy and BAFTA winner Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, The Responder). Written by David Ireland and directed by Finn den Hertog, the production chronicles a fragile friendship between James, a veteran of Alcoholics Anonymous who becomes a sponsor to newcomer Luka. As Luka approaches step five, the moment of confession, dangerous truths emerge that threaten the trust anchoring both men’s recoveries.

By Any Means, a crime thriller arriving 11 September, draws narrative momentum from historical events. The film follows a young Black FBI agent (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) dispatched to 1960s Mississippi to investigate killings targeting civil rights leaders. Forced to collaborate with notorious mafia hitman Greg Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg), the agent finds justice and vengeance beginning to blur as the hunt intensifies. The same date brings The Fix, a high-stakes heist film in which Zachary Levi leads a team through escalating betrayals and shifting alliances as they navigate Iran’s labyrinth of deceit toward redemption. Runner, a hybrid action-comedy-thriller directed by Scott Waugh, pairs Alan Ritchson as a former soldier with Owen Wilson in a race against a ruthless cartel to deliver a critical medical shipment that will save a child’s life.

11 September also marks the release of Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, a documentary charting Liam and Noel Gallagher’s reunion tour, Oasis Live ‘25, positioned as one of 2025’s most anticipated rock music events. Practical Magic 2 returns audiences to a moonlit world of ancestral magic as the Owens sisters confront a dark curse threatening their family’s survival.

Mid-month brings Fall 2: Deadpoint, a survival-thriller directed by Peter and Michael Spierig in which two climbers become trapped thousands of feet above ground on Thailand’s Mount Kwan. The sequel to Fall (2022) emphasizes vertigo-inducing heights and impossible odds as a test of human endurance.

17 September launches the 13th European Film Festival South Africa, presenting award-winning and critically acclaimed European films across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. This programming event establishes a distinct curatorial anchor for the month’s theatrical calendar.

18 September introduces Silas en die Ysbeer op Tafelberg, a South African drama following a young boy (Neels Clasen Jr.) navigating childhood shaped by wonder and grief. Rather than accepting his grandmother’s (Antoinette Kellermann) death, Silas believes she has wandered into Dreamland and sets out to find her. The Uprising, a large-scale historical epic directed with behaviour-driven tension, centers Andrew Garfield as an unnamed ploughman forced from quiet labour into reluctant leadership of a rebellion against King Richard II’s tyranny. The film examines class struggle, state violence, and the cyclical nature of resistance.

Coyote vs. Acme reimagines the cartoon universe as a live-action satire in which Wile E. Coyote teams with a human billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation for decades of product failures. Sacrifice, Romain Gavras’ English-language debut, positions Chris Evans as a movie star in existential crisis, taken hostage during a star-studded charity gala by a radical warrior (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her followers. The film blurs performance and belief, salvation and sacrifice, across a night of escalating chaos.

25 September brings family-oriented releases. Shaun the Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom, from Bristol-based stop-motion studio Aardman, follows the residents of Mossy Bottom Farm as Halloween preparations spiral into chaos when the Farmer destroys their pumpkin patch. Resident Evil, the second full reboot of Capcom’s survival-horror franchise directed by Zach Cregger, reimagines the narrative in a contemporary setting as a medical courier (Austin Abrams) descends into chaos during a viral outbreak at Raccoon City General Hospital. DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island explores lifelong friendship through the Filipino concept of kapwa, a shared identity rooted in mutual respect and interconnectedness. Heart Of The Beast pairs Brad Pitt with a military dog, Odin, in a survival narrative following a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness.

Closing out the month, Avengers Endgame: Encore, a re-release arriving three months before Doomsday, includes four to seven minutes of new or bonus material as the remaining heroes attempt to restore universal order following catastrophic population loss. Whether that addition is enough to draw audiences back to a film they already know by heart is the question the studios will be watching closely.