South Africa's Postal Service epic fail to deliver our movie for festival

Our movie is due to screen at the Cape Town International Film Festival in the middle of October 2017. The technical test of the film is due 2 weeks in advance. The film was sent (immediately after we heard our film was selected to play in the festival) via data drive (DCP) from Germany to Cape Town long in advance because we know the postal service is normally slow in South Africa. So, we bought a one week to 10 working days delivery to arrive directly at our door, which was due to arrive 2 weeks in advance of the film screening technical test. We are now 3 working days from that deadline and after two dozen phone calls to various forwarded departments, Cape Town Customs informs us on 27 September that the film drive is still sitting in Johannesburg's office (customs?) from 8 September. Officially on the tracking system it is not even entered as having arrived in South Africa yet... even though it's sitting there. We've been forwarded to a dozen more phone numbers to call for help, they're all forwarding us to others while the Customs at the Oliver Tambo International Airport Johannesburg doesn't answer the phone and we were told by Cape Town Customs that Johannesburg doesn't answer their phone. Bad service or non existent service?

DHL also guilty of poor service

The reason for this combined poor service, or rather no real customer service, is that no company from this purchased courier is taking any responsibility and this includes DHL. The movie was shipped using DHL in Germany to come to Cape Town, but the order was made in such a way (that we were not aware of) that DHL is using the South African Postal Service once it arrives in our country. As a result DHL Express or any of their services do not pick up our tracking number and keep passing us onto the SA Postal Services who claim that the parcel is not in South Africa. They tell us to contact DHL and DHL tells us to contact them. From the dozens of phone calls we've made about three have confirmed that the parcel is indeed in South Africa, but it hasn't been entered as such on the system. In fact even DHL Germany has confirmed it is in South Africa.

This is a clear failure from both DHL Worldwide and the South African postal service to provide a proper service. The movie drive is clearly marked as for cultural purposes and no commercial value, so there should also be no need for SA Customs to sit with the parcel for 3 weeks. Having paid DHL for a one week service, a month has now passed. It would be fair to say that nobody can rely on DHL when it teams up with the SA Postal Service for a one week delivery deadline.

As for our solution to the many followers, ticket buyers and cast and crew flying to Cape Town to watch the film: We have a backup Bluray of the film that we will use, but this is inferior in quality to the full cinema DCP that we invested a lot of money in creating and posting to South Africa.