by Thinus Ferreira
The 9th Joburg Film Festival (JFF) that will run from 9 to 14 March 2027 has unveiled its theme for next year as "Visual Horizons: What the World Sees".
According to the film festival, its theme for next year "Looks outwards: towards different lives, cultures, experiences and ways of seeing".
"It asks what becomes possible when cinema takes us beyond what we know, and how encountering another perspective can shift our understanding of the world around us".
The JFF organisers say the festival's focus next year "turns to the encounters cinema makes possible, the questions it leaves us with, and new perspectives".
Taryn Joffe, JFF festival manager, says "The starting point is always the film and the particular world a filmmaker opens up for audiences".
"Visual Horizons is about entering that world with curiosity and being open to what it might change in us."
"It also invites us to consider cinema's wider cultural influences and the diverse visual languages that inform it. This spirit of discovery and openness to new perspectives will guide the 2027 programme and the conversations around it."
The 9th Joburg Film Festival's visual identity uses the work of the Johannesburg-born visual artist and muralist Blessing Ntsikelelo Blaai, whose artwork Décor: Homeless (2026) has been selected as the festival's hero artwork.
Selected from Blessing Ntsikelelo Blaai's recent solo exhibition Surrogate Emotions, Décor: Homeless experiments with colourful planes and layered spaces, with each frame offering a different point of view.
Its shifting perspectives, texture and bold use of colour form the foundation of JFF’s visual identity for 2027.
His contemporary practice combines geometric abstraction and faceless figures to explore urban spaces, human connection, memory and trauma.
The theme inspires the film festival programme holistically, with the JFF says that it will help to connect "what audiences experience on screen with the conversations, encounters and creative exchanges beyond it".
The JFF's initiative for emerging filmmakers, Young Voices, will have "The Next Vision" as its theme for 2027.
JBX, the festival's industry programme, will once again foster engagements with filmmakers about the business and craft of film, as well as the latest industry trends.
Tim Mangwedi, JFF founder and executive director, says "JFF has grown through the connections it creates between filmmakers, audiences and the city of Johannesburg, and we are very excited about the upcoming ninth edition".
"With each edition, we want to create more opportunities for African stories to take centre stage at the festival and reach audiences beyond it. The city gives that exchange a home, bringing African cinema into conversation with films from around the world."