Lawrence Maleka takes Future Tense to Toronto as Centrepiece premiere

Lawrence Maleka has made his international film festival debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Future Tense had its world premiere in the festival’s Centrepiece programme.

The South African-Australian science fiction drama is directed by Jenna Cato Bass. Maleka stars as Lwando opposite Kristen Raath as Tara, with Qondiswa James also in the cast. He is an executive producer on the film as well.

The 51st edition of the festival runs across venues in Toronto, Canada, until 20 September 2026. As The Citizen reported on 17 September, the premiere marks Maleka’s first appearance at an international film festival.

A Cape Town story with a time-travelling premise

Future Tense is set in a near-future Cape Town facing climate collapse. A couple is given the chance to travel back to 1647, before colonisation. What begins as an escape from their circumstances becomes more complicated when Lwando realises he may be able to change the course of history.

That premise places a South African city and a South African historical turning point at the centre of the film, rather than at its margins. The year 1647 sits just before the arrival of European settlement at the Cape, and the film’s question, whether the course of that history could be altered, is one a South African audience will read differently from an audience in Toronto.

What Maleka said about the recognition

Maleka told The Citizen that the response to the film has been hard to absorb. “The movie and the incredible recognition that it’s getting around the world is still kind of surreal,” he said. “It’s humbling. It’s validation.”

He said the reception reflected the effort behind the production and the team that made it. “The amount of hard work that went into making the movie, the tireless hours spent, is just testament to what we as a continent, and more so as South Africa, has to offer in terms of storytelling and craft.”

He also described the recognition as carrying an obligation, saying the aim is to repeat it rather than treat it as a once-off.

We find ourselves with an immense responsibility in ensuring that these aren’t just words, this isn’t just a recognition, this isn’t just a one-time thing that we do.

The producer’s chair, and what comes next

Maleka said working as part of the executive producing team gave him the chance to collaborate across borders. “We’ve just had an incredible team of collaborators from all over the world. Australia, New York, just coming together and having people that believe in the project,” he said.

He said the experience had sharpened his appetite for what comes after. “We are excited about the prospects of what we can achieve as a production house, the kinds of shows that we wanna tell, the engagements that we wanna have with the audience,” he said. “This is the next phase of my professional career.”

Why a Centrepiece slot matters here

TIFF’s Centrepiece programme is a curated strand for international cinema, and a place in it puts a film in front of distributors, festival programmers and press who would not otherwise see it. For a South African production, that exposure is the practical difference a festival can make. It is how a title travels to screens in other countries, and how the people who made it get their next meeting.

South African film has a long record of reaching international audiences, from the documentary and festival circuit to features that have carried local stories abroad. What Future Tense adds is a genre that South African cinema has worked in less often at this scale, science fiction, built on a local city and a local historical question.

For audiences at home, the near-term question is when the film will be seen here. A world premiere in Toronto is the start of that process, not the end of it, and the festival runs until 20 September.

Source: The Citizen, ‘This is the next phase’: Lawrence Maleka makes international film festival debut in Toronto