2012 NAF to break away from conventional spaces

The film programme will once again be crammed with esoteric world cinema highlights, South African films and opportunities to see some recent movie-house successes.

Mikhael Subotzky, the 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art, will present an entirely new body of work centred on a four-channel film installation. Photographic, video and installation works will complete his exhibition Retinal Shift, which investigates the practice and mechanics of looking, in relation to the history of Grahamstown, the history of photographic devices, and Subotzky's own history as an artist. He will also be collaborating with Athi-Patra Ruga on a performance piece entitled Performance Obscura, linking Subotzky's Young Artist exhibition to others on the main programme.

Making Way, curated by Ruth Simbao, also forges new physical, social and conceptual pathways. Presented in three venues: the Alumni Gallery, the Provost and Fort Selwyn, but curated as one exhibition, it includes installation, photography, print, painting, video, animated film, and performances by Randolph Hartzenberg, Doung Anwar Jahangeer, Athi-Patra Ruga and Gerald Machona.

The female body as seen in art history

Maureen de Jager's Maria's Story is a mixed-media exhibition that traces a story spanning four generations and engages with a particular period in South Africa's history. In Venus at Home, curated by Les Cohn, Usha Seejarim straddles her distinctly female roles as home-maker,housewife,mother, and artist, with a body of work that uses ordinary household objects to depict the female body as seen in art history. Clare Menck's retrospective exhibition, A Hidden Life Exposed, represents two decades of documentation of her own life as she, too, grapples with her different and changing roles.

Cedric Nunn's exhibition Call and Response, curated by Jacob Lebeko and presented by Sieppel Galleries, features his photographs from the late 1970s to the present day, with a focus on the people of KwaZulu-Natal and neighbouring Mozambique.

My Freedom, My Expression is presented by the Eastern Cape Department of Sports Recreation, Arts & Culture and reflects on the last 100 years of the struggle for freedom, and how artists armed with their canvases and paints, cameras and screens, sharpened the sensitivity of the communities in which they lived.

Re-imagine Concrete is presented by PPC and celebrates 21 years of their commitment to supporting artists and non-governmental service organisations.

South African premieres of international films

The festival will feature three South African premieres of international films, both of director Robin Hardy's films, The Wicker Tree and The Wicker Man, and Monte Hellman's Road to Nowhere.

This year's retrospective shines a spotlight on the activist cinema of Peter Watkins, whose son Patrick will represent his work at the festival and lead pre- and post-screening discussions. The Watkins retrospective will include The Diary Of An Unknown Soldier, The Forgotten Faces, Culloden, The War Game, Privilege, The Gladiators, Punishment Park, Edvard Munch, Evening Land, La Commune and The Freethinker.

12 Amaz!ng is a series of some of the best cinema drawn from films made in Brazil, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Kenya, the US, China, Italy and Belgium, and will provide cine enthusiasts with an opportunity to get a glimpse into the contemporary cinema of Poland, the country that has given Roman Polanski to the world. The South African film series will feature Black Butterflies, Breathe Again, My Hunter's Heart, The Last Lion, Man On The Ground, Material, Skeem, Snare and 31 Million Reasons.

Bookings for this year's "11 Days of Amaz!ng" open in May. Tickets are available through Computicket. Booking kits will be available from selected Standard Bank branches, selected Exclusive Books and Computicket branches from May. For more information on the programme, accommodation and travel options, go to www.nationalartsfestival.co.za.