THE noir thriller Impunity, the latest film by South African director Jyoti Mistry, will be screened at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), giving audiences a sneak preview prior to the film’s release in August.

The film, which has also been screened at the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, tells the story of a Special Crimes Unit investigator, Dingande Fakude (Desmond Dube), and a local police detective and trained psychologist, Naveed Khan (Vaneshran Arumugam), who find themselves caught up in political corruption and conspiracy when they investigate the gruesome murder of a cabinet minister’s daughter at an exclusive African safari resort.

A young couple, Derren (Bjorn Steinbach) and Echo (Alex McGregor), who were working as waiters at the woman’s engagement party, are taken in for questioning by the two lawmen. As they begin to piece events together, it becomes clear that there is much more to the high-profile murder case than first imagined. The two uncover a trail of murders and are faced with a moral dilemma involving the new political elite.

The Toronto Film Festival organisers described Impunity as “an eye-opening jolt, casting an unwavering gaze on South Africa’s increasingly troubling surrender to the banality of violence.”

The film opens nationwide on August 28, but film-goers in Durban can catch two screenings at Musgrave at 2.15 pm on July 18 and at the Elangeni Hotel at 2 pm on July 26. For more information go to http://www.durbanfilmfest.co.za/