Some films need a room.
This is the room.

Most film clubs are just screenings with a group chat. The Long Take is something else. We pick films that reward attention — the kind that stay with you for days, that you keep turning over, that make you want to talk to a stranger about them immediately. So we do. After every screening, we stay. We argue, compare, misremember, and occasionally completely disagree about what we just watched.
The Bioscope — one of Johannesburg's most loved independent cinemas — gave us a home when we were still figuring out what we were, and that partnership has shaped everything. A proper cinema, a proper conversation, a proper community.
No algorithms. No streaming queues. Just a room full of people who showed up for the same thing, and left with something different.

About the Curators

Deniz Sertkol and François Smit met at a conference in New York in 2011 and have spent the years since looking for the right moment to build something together. Deniz works at the intersection of programming, criticism, and public cinema culture — her career spans institutions including The Bioscope, the Goethe-Institut, and the German Film Office New York, alongside festivals such as the Berlinale Forum and True/False Film Fest. Her curatorial interests centre on gender, identity, and movement, with a particular love for short and experimental forms, indie films, and horror. François founded House of Shem and brings two decades of international film experience — as Head of International Selection at INPUT, Head of Postgraduate Studies at AFDA, and founder of Culture & Arts Network in Berlin. He currently manages the Africa-Europe Partnerships for Culture initiative through the Goethe-Institut. Between the two of them, they know how to find the people who look beyond the film — and to create the space where those people belong.