Guest Film Makers

EMMA BESTALL -

Bestall has a degree in Social Anthropology. Fascinated by how people use metaphor and ritual to classify and understand their lives she has taken the opportunity to use metaphor as a narrative tool in this, her début film, set on the banks of the Ganges in India, where she lived for 6 months.

ANGÈLE DIABANG BRENER -

Brener was a camera operator and editor before making her first short documentary My beautiful smile (2005), which screened at Encounters 2007. She then founded and runs her own production company, Karoninka, and made Senegalese Women and Islam
(2007) which also screened at Encounters in 2007.

NADINE ANGEL CLOETE - JITSVINGER: MAAK IT AAN!

Jitsvinger is Cloete’s Film Theory and Practice Honours project (UCT 2008). In 2005 she made Miseducation that focuses on gansterism in schools, and which won the first prize at the 2005 Youth for Human Rights International Film Festival, Los Angeles. Nadine is passionate about making films that challenge social ills
and explore issues of identity and culture.

LIZ FISH - DEEP FRIENDS

Award winning TV documentary director and producer Liz Fish, a graduate of UCT (1982), has been in the industry since 1983. Her work covers a wide range of subjects from anti-apartheid issues, to human rights, youth programs, current affairs and environmental
issues. She won the 2008 KKNK Kanna Award, Best South African short film for Voëlvry (Healing Power of Nature series), which screened at Encounters 2007. She is currently a producer for Carte Blanche. Deep Friends is the sixth film she has made for the Healing Power of Nature series.

KATRIN HANSING - FREDDY ILANGA:
CHE’S SWAHILI TR ANSLATOR

Hansing, an author and social anthropologist, is Professor of Black and Hispanic Studies at City University New York and Associate Director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. She lived in Cuba for over twelve years and is actively engaged in cultural and academic events and exchanges with the island. This is her début documentary film.

RIAAN HENDRICKS - THE LAST VOYAGE

Drawn to observational-style documentary making, Hendricks appreciates films that are sensitive to people and that, with meaningful simplicity, are able to bring understanding to political situations that affect society. Over the last few years he has produced seven 48 minute documentaries, edited 9 films, and directed 5 other documentary films: A Fisherman’s Tale (2003), Revolutionaries Love Life (2007), Through the Eye of the Needle (2007), The City that Kills Somalians (2007), Baraka! (2008).

HHP A.K.A JABULANI TSAMBO - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Multiple-award winner, Mmbabatho bred HHP has carved out an enviable solo career in the music industry. Not only did he take the titles of Best Rap Album and Best Male Artist at the South African Music Association Awards in 2008, he is also the celebrity winner of Strictly Come Dancing in 2007.

MARK J KAPLAN - THE INVINCIBLES

Kaplan produced the two 13-part Pan African Television & Radio documentary series, Africa: Search for Common Ground and African Renaissance, for the SABC in 1997 and 2000. Between 1997 and 2006 he directed a number of award-winning films around the TRC: Where Truth Lies won The One World Media Awards 1999, London - Best International Documentary, and the Vermont International Film and Television Awards 2000 - Best of the Fest. In 2004, Between Joyce and Remembrance was selected for INPUT in Barcelona and in 2006 won the Award of Excellence at the American Anthropological Association. He was a co-producer of A Lion’s Trail which won an Emmy in 2005. His film Betrayal was nominated for a SAFTA in 2008.

WILLIAM KAREL - WHO KILLED MAGGIE?

A graduate of the Vaugirard School of Photography in Paris, Karel was a photo-journalist for the Gamma and Sygma agencies from 1977 to 1985, then made reportages for the television current affairs programmes, Ex-libris, Envoyé spécial, La Marche du siècle, Les Brûlures de l’Histoire and Planète chaude. A renowned documentary filmmaker, he often deals with political themes. His recent work includes The World According to Bush and La Fille du juge. In 2004 he was bestowed the FIPA of Honor.

LIZA KEY - REWIND

Key has directed 6 documentaries, among them A Question of Madness (1998), about Hendrik Verwoerd’s assassin, Dimitri Tsafendas, The Man Who Knows Too Much (2000) about the former Chemical and Biological Warfare chief, Wouter Basson and Karoo Kitaar Blues (2003), a road movie with David Kramer (Best Music Documentary, 2004 Tiburon Film Festival, San Francisco). She has been the director of SCRAWL, the South African Screenwriters Laboratory, since 1998, and was the director of the Mail & Guardian Film Festival from 1986 to 1995. She produced the performance of Rewind: A Cantata for Voice Tape and Testimony at the Market Theatre in 2008 and is developing a documentary inspired by Njabulo Ndebele’s Cry of Winnie Mandela with South African composer Neo Muyanga.

BRYAN LITTLE - FOKOFPOLISIEKAR

Little received the Grand Prix at the 2004 International Design Indaba New Media Awards for his work on the multi-media digital magazine ‘Sub Urban Magazine.’ He is also the co-founder of the Ruff Cuts film festival and was featured in Shots international showreel as one of the up-and-coming top 50 directors in the world.

NTOKOZO MAHLALELA - TRIBES AND CLANS

Mahlalela’s beginning in the media was as a founding member of Barberton Community Radio in 1998. He completed his studies at the Newtown Film & TV School in 2003 where he made a ‘soccer film’ called The Ticket and has been freelancing ever since. Tribes and Clans is his début documentary produced by his company, NR75 Pictures.

ZOLA MASEKO - THE MANUSCRIPTS OF TIMBUKTU

Multi-award winning filmmaker Maseko was born in exile (1967) and educated in Swaziland and Tanzania. A member of Umkhonto We Sizwe (1987-89) he left to study at the National Film and Television School in the UK. Though he specialised in directing documentaries Maseko has also made many fiction films including the feature Drum. Among his documentaries are The Life and Times of Sarah Baartman, The Return of Sarah Baartman, Children of the Revolution and the mini-series Homecoming. Maseko is based in Johannesburg and runs a film company called Black Roots Pictures.

DAWN MATTHEWS - WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Oudtshoorn born Matthews is a Drama graduate (Stellenbosch University 1997) who is probably best known for her roles as Shakira in the e.tv soap Scandal! and as Constable Gillian Peterse on the SABC1 drama series Interrogation Room. She has appeared in numerous other prominent soaps and dramas including Egoli and Song vir Katryn. In 2002 she acted in the American horror movie, Snake Island.

THABO BRUNO MOKOENA - SOUL TRAIN

Soweto born and bred Mokoena has a technical background in sound engineering from years as a ‘roadie’, then studied drama at the Soyinka community arts school in Soweto. He is a graduate of the Big Fish School of Digital Filmmaking.

NHLANHLA MTHETHWA - LUNCHBOX BULLIES

Thokoza (East Rand) born and bred Mthethwa began as a production assistant on Dali Thambo’s People of the South while enrolled part time with Boston Media College. Progressing from researching for local and international productions he has directed a number of documentaries - Mandela: A royal revolutionary and
KK the African Pioneer, among them.

VELCROW RIPPER - FIERCE LIGHT: WHEN SPIRIT MEETS ACTION

Canadian Ripper, who made his first film aged 16, is a multi award-winning film director and sound designer, he is also a writer, cinematographer and film instructor. The two driving forces of his life, political activism and spirituality, have inspired 28 films made all over the world, from ScaredSacred, a pilgrimage to the ‘Ground Zeros’ of the planet (2005 Genie, Best Documentary and Special Jury Prize, 2004 Toronto IFF) to Bones of the Forest (Hot Docs, Best of the Fest, and 1996 Genie, Best Feature Documentary) about the struggle to save ancient forests in British Columbia.

YOAV SHAMIR - DEFAMATION

Israeli born Shamir began his art career when he specialized in Photography at the Vitzo France art school. After his BA (History, Philosophy) he read for an MFA in cinema, graduating with honours from the University of Tel-Aviv. As a director and cinematographer he has completed 4 other full-length documentaries which have screened at every major festival, and won numerous international awards. Checkpoint (2003) won the Joris Ivens Award, IDFA 2003 and Best International Documentary Feature, Hot Docs 2004.

LISA SWART - THE PIONEER OF PARAGUAY

Swart, a graduate of AFDA (writing and directing), won the 2002 Best Student film award for the short Charlize and I and has since written and directed five other short films. She spent her teenage years in Paraguay.

FRANCOIS VERSTER - SEA POINT DAYS

Verster is a filmmaker, academic and writer. His films include the Emmy Award-winning A Lion’s Trail, and the multiple-award-winning films The War is Over and The Mother’s House. Voted number 6 in the 2006 The Star’s top 100 South African artists he is the recipient of the 2007 Percy Fox Film Fellowship (UCT) and has taught at many universities at home and abroad, among them Tisch (NY) and he filled the Queen Wilhelmina Assistant Visiting Professor chair, Columbia University, in 2008. He has published short stories, poems and academic articles on identity issues in South African documentary.

LINDY WILSON - FOR WHICH I AM PREPARED TO DIE

Wilson began making films when she saw history being removed without trace. Inexperienced, she shot her first film, Crossroads, on 16mm in 1978. Last Supper in Hortsley Street witnesses the forcible removal of the Hendricks family from District Six. Shot clandestinely in her home, Robben Island Our University (1987) records a conversation between three ex-political prisoners. In 1993 she produced the 16-part TV series Unbanned: Films South Africans Were Not Allowed To See and won awards for A Travelling Song. The Guguletu Seven unravels the truth behind the planned ambush and murder by police of seven young men in Guguletu.