Encounters Documentary Festival 2025 Announces a Season that Pushes all the Pressure Points

Now in its 27th year, the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival highlights the most pressing issues of the world today, and celebrates the global disruptors in the film industry. Tackling issues such as femicide, the global rise of authoritarianism, indigenous land redistribution and the after-effects of war, the festival is a crucial point of information for global issues. The festival is taking place in both Cape Town and Johannesburg from 19 to 29 June 2025, and highlights the increasingly important role that filmmakers play in the modern world.

The Themes of This Year’s Festival

This year’s Encounters Documentary Festival is screening documentaries from over 40 countries and covers five themes, all covering the current state of the world and the different issues that plague it.

The first theme is The Frightening Reality of Now, capturing a world in flux, besieged by war, climate collapse and leaps in technology not fully understood. Rather than spiral into alarmism and dread, these films confront the philosophical gravity of changes happening too rapidly for most of us to process.

Secondly, Ways of Learning focuses on the wonderfully distinct aspects of education, and its ever-increasing importance on the global stage.

The biggest collection of documentaries falls in the theme Agency – Standing up to Power for good reason. Here subversives met with persecution in daily life may be celebrated onscreen, as these impact-driven documentaries present defiance, resilience and quiet courage.

The theme Memory, Trauma and Identity gathers personal and political reckonings of the residue of the past that lingers in the present, within the minds, within the family, within the nation. Healing inherited trauma, confronting loss, or reclaiming erased histories, memory is both burden and balm in these threads of heritage.

Finally, The Art and Impact frames the inherent ability of the arts to document injustice, shift culture, and move people to action.

For a full list of films on show at this year’s Encounters Documentary Festival, have a look at the website.