The festival, which has once again partnered with SACAP (the South African College of Applied Psychology), aims to educate, entertain, inform, and promote solutions and successes of recovery from addiction and other mental health problems. It is part of the 'International Recovery Month' initiative, which sees thousands of events take place all around the world.

"Everyone knows someone who is negatively affected by substance abuse, whether alcohol or drugs. Process addictions such as sex, gambling, eating problems, gaming, and technology are seemingly increasing, and the prevalence of stress, depression, and other mental health issues across society are hard to deny. The problems are all too evident, and the impacts on every level of society all too obvious. However, the solutions are too seldom celebrated," says festival organiser, Dougie Dudgeon.

"The Recovery Film Festival is proud to be part of 'International Recovery Month' and to work with SACAP to bring this vital resource to life in Cape Town and Johannesburg. In the Mother City, we have once again invited the Recovery Walk Cape Town participants to finish their annual event with us at the Labia on Monday, 25 September, as we believe in the importance of celebrating recovery. The Recovery Film Festival can help people understand addiction, and recovery, so we welcome those in recovery, family, friends, health care professionals, carers of all types, policy makers, law enforcement and, most of all, anyone who likes good films," adds Dudgeon.

"It is an important reminder that there are brave warriors meeting these devastating social challenges and constructively confronting them head-on with a range of game-changing projects and initiatives. Recovery is not the preserve of an elite few – it is a possibility for everyone battling with addiction and mental health problems," says SACAP CEO, Lance Katz.

Katz adds, "The festival raises awareness of the enormous personal and social price that is paid. In line with SACAP’s own mandate to act as a catalyst for positive social change through improving mental health awareness and service delivery in South Africa, the festival powerfully motivates for the mobilising of sufficient mental health care resources to address the causes of the problems and provide sustainable solutions."

The festival opens with multi-award winning film, The Peacemaker. The film's subject, Professor Padraig O’Malley, has links with South Africa and brought both sides in the Irish peace process to Arniston in the Western Cape to a conference hosted by Nelson Mandela in the lead up to the historic Good Friday Agreement, which brought reconciliation to Northern Ireland.

Professor O’Malley was a long-term alcoholic who established his recovery in South Africa and worked the tools he learned for personal recovery into his international work.

You can buy tickets for the festival here.

For more information, visit www.southafricanrecoveryfilmfestival.com. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook.