Thandi Davids (Co-chair)
Thandi began her career in PR and was head-hunted to join the Independent Broadcasting Authority at its inception. She has worked in the music industry producing the Kora All Africa Music Awards for live TV broadcast, in print media and worked closely with the UN to deliver major events including the WSSD, the IUCN Conservations conference and COP17. She served as Africa Regional Director of Broadcasting and Marketing for Fox International Channels and is presently a founding member of StoryScope where she serves as EP and Head of Development.
Quinton (Bertram) Fredericks (Co-chair)
Quinton aka Bertram Fredericks is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, director and producer. In 2007 he won a SAFTA for the best Educational Documentary Series covering 58 episodes of 24 minutes each for SABC. With a career in the film and television production industry spanning more than 20 years, he has extensive understanding of the policy and legislative environment as it pertains to the film and television sector having chaired the Working Group on Black Economic Empowerment and Transformation under the auspices of the then Cape Film Commission. As a registered skills development facilitator, he has pioneered some of the most comprehensive and innovative skills development programs for emerging and underprivileged filmmakers and producers.
Wandile Molebatsi (Vice Chair)
Wandile Molebatsi is a South African actor and producer at Coal Stove Pictures. He started acting in the 1990s as a child including a stint as a KTV presenter and later starred as laid back tracker Blessing Dlamini in the M-Net soap opera The Wild, from 2011-2013. You might also recognize him from the South African mini-series, When We Were Black (2006).. His early career in film and theatre was suspended for him to complete his studies in Drama and Film at Wits. Wandile is currently a producer at a wholly black owned television and film production company, Coal Stove Pictures. Coal Stove Pictures was the winner of the 2007 Business Day – BASA Award for Art Sponsorship by a Small Business and a finalist at the 2008 SAB KickStart Competition. Wandile is driven by creating Pan AFRICAN content that promotes #GlobalAfricanExcellence.
Sanjeev Singh (Vice Chair)
Sanjeev Singh has over 30 years of experience in film acquisition and distribution in South Africa. As Head of Acquisition and Distribution of Videovision Entertainment, he has acquired films across genres of for distribution in South Africa, ranging from small independent documentaries, Foreign Language and Arthouse films to multi-million dollar blockbuster films. Sanjeev has executive produced a number of motion pictures made under the banner of Videovision Entertainment, among which are Shepherds and Butchers, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, the Oscar Nominated Yesterday, Red Dust, the hit comedies Mr Bones and Mr Bones 2 and Mama Jack, The Long Run, Barack Obama: People’s President and was associate producer on Bravo Two Zero, Sarafina! and Cry, The Beloved Country. His expertise in the film industry was recognized by former Minister of Arts & Culture, Dr Ben Ngubane with an appointment as a councillor to the inaugural council of the National Film and Video Foundation.
Khosie Dali (Secretary)
Khosie is a producer based in Cape Town, South Africa, the owner and founder of Miss K Productions. The company was founded with the focus of developing stories of black filmmakers and creating a safe space for emerging filmmakers to present their stories to a global audience. The main aim is to unearth female writers and directors. The company also offers facilitation for minority international co-productions and foreign production facilitation in South Africa.
Leanne Khumalo (Treasurer)
Leanne is the MD of Seriti Films which she co-founded in 2017 and EP of the award-winning series Gomora, as well as The Herd, and The Imposter. She also heads up the Seriti Commercials division as Executive Producer, producing over 80 TV commercials in the last 9 years, and winning several notable accolades such as Loeries, Pendorings and Creative Circle awards. Her first feature film, Bunny Chow (2005) official selection for Toronto Film Festival, which she produced while still completing her honours degree in filmmaking at the African School of Motion Picture (AFDA). Kumalo also completed her Post Graduate degree in Business Administration at GIBS (2009), were she finished cum laude.
Basiami Segola
Basiami received her BA Honours in Motion Picture Medium from AFDA in 2003 which led to her career as a sound designer in films, series and documentaries. She launched her career as sound designer and mixer on the 3 part miniseries, Homecoming. She has worked on several dramas for the SABC, documentaries and features. She was recognised for her work with a nomination for Best Sound Design in a Film at the RapidLion Film Festival (2017) for Noem My Skollie and won a SAFTA award for Best Sound Design in a Feature (2016) for her work on Hear Me Move. Other notable work includes being the sound recorder for the documentary unit on District 9 and the Netflix series Queen Sono. During her film career, she studied towards a law degree and in 2019, she graduated with a LLB from Unisa.
Beverly Mitchell
I’m first and foremost a storyteller. The art of crafting stories, using the medium of film, television and video, is perhaps one of my strongest qualities. I started working in the industry in 1993. I’ve worked as an independent producer, director and writer in film and television from 1996 – 2009, running my own production company from 1999 – 2009. From 2010 until 2019 I’ve worked as a freelance series producer, series director, director, supervising producer, creative producer, line producer, production manager, actors’ coach, trainer, lecturer, consultant, movie magic scheduler, scriptwriter and script editor. My accumulative experience is around 27 years in the film, television and video industries. In 2019 I was appointed the Manager of Scripted Content at Okuhle Media in Cape Town, a position I still currently hold.
Cait Pansegrouw
Cait is a producer and casting director that has worked internationally for the past 6 years, a SAFTA-winner with work that has travelled to Sundance, Berlinale, Venice, Durban and FESPACO, to name a few. In 2018 she was included on the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans list. Cait is passionate about identifying and developing talent and together with her business partner Elias Ribeiro, founded Realness Institute, which seeks to foster a new wave of African cinema. She has also served as an expert and/or mentor in various labs/courses by London Film School, The National Film and Television School and The Ladima Foundation. Her work has been supported by public and private funding globally. INXEBA (The Wound), which she produced and cast directed, screened at more than 60 festivals worldwide, winning 28 awards, including 6 SAFTAs. It was also selected as South Africa’s official entry for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018, making it to the December shortlist of 9 films. Most recently, her feature film This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection, made through Biennale College – Cinema, and shot entirely in the remote mountains of Lesotho, was awarded the Jury Prize for Visionary Filmmaking at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. This film has gone on to win 14 more awards and continues to compete at festivals. Cait is a Durban Talents, Berlinale Talents, La Fabrique Cinema de L’Institut Francais, EAVE Producer’s Workshop and Biennale College – Cinema alumna.
Layla Swart
Layla Swart is one of South Africa’s most accomplished producers, despite being only 32 years old. Churning out a litany of impressive work in record time through her production house Yellowbone Entertainment. After obtaining a post-graduate degree in film and media production from the University of Cape Town, Layla has been senior editor and postproduction supervisor on numerous South African feature films and her writing work has enjoyed success at international and South African festivals. 2015 saw her move into production full time on large-scale international television projects such as ABC’s Kings and Prophets and Paolo Sorrentino’s HBO series The Young Pope.
She has produced and edited five multiple-award winning films for her company and is contributing to the development of young film makers with every step. As a young, female, producer of colour, Layla has shown incredible creative and financial fortitude and acuity in promoting and developing local film through creating mutually viable relationships with state and private sectors that makes her a force to be reckoned with within the film industry. Layla was recently awarded the SAFTA Youth Achiever prize for 2019, as well as the 2020 SAFTA for Best Editor of a feature film. Producing each project on her own, Layla has battled incredible odds to achieve what she has today. Currently Layla has just completed production on Blood Psalms, a 10-part, high end tv series.
Luke Rous
Luke Rous has produced over 250 hours of prime-time programming and 2 feature films over the past 15 years and specializes in executive producing long-form comedy and drama. Career highlights include a Rose D’Or nomination for best comedy series, Best SA short film at DIFF, screening at the Cannes film festival and the SAFTA award winning drama series High Rollers which moved from a 26 part hour-long drama to a 300 part long running series, selling to multiple territories around the world. Luke has a keen interest in international co-production as well as seeing the South African Film and TV industry become a more equitable, fair and robust environment.
Marvin Saven
Marvin is a partner and Financial Director at Moonlighting Films. He joined the company in 2004 and is responsible for all matters pertaining to finance, accounting and tax planning. Prior to joining Moonlighting, he was a manager at Deloitte in SA and the UK. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant who graduated Cum Laude on the Dean’s Merit List.
Marvin is recognised as a DTI Rebate specialist and has overseen the processing of over sixty applications over sixteen years, representing more than R1billion of film incentives for clients. He is also a co-production specialist, having structured over twenty co-productions including the first official SA / UK and SA / French treaty co-productions.
Michael Auret
Originally a lawyer, having trained at UCT and worked as both a legal adviser in the Constitutional Assembly in 1995 and as a Parliamentary liaison officer for the South African Chamber of Business (SACOB) organising lobbying of MPs around bills that were interesting to business. A founding member of the National Constitutional assembly (NCA) in Zimbabwe, Mike ran the media campaign that defeated Mugabe in the 2000 referendum and also successfully challenged, and overturned in the Supreme Court, the Broadcasting Act of Zimbabwe, establishing the first private broadcaster in Zimbabwe. Mike is currently the MD of Spier Films, a Cape Town and London based production, financing and sales company that he took over at the end of 2007. Mike is responsible for the Spier Film Fund which has invested equity as well as gap finance and pre-sale loans in various films and established the Film and Television Finance Company which cashflows the DTI rebate for various productions. In 2012 he co-founded Etana Film Guarantors which was sold on to become Hollard Film Guarantors. Since 2009, he has financed and produced 26 films of which 14 were international co-productions.
Nobuntu ‘BusaBuntu’ Dubazana
Nobuntu ‘BusaBuntu’ Dubazana is the Creative Founder of disruptive media company, BusaBuntu Pictures (PtY) Ltd, youth and women focused NPC, The BusaBuntu Foundation, a Council Member for the Film and Publication Board of South Africa and co-founder of South African slow fashion brand, OSISI. With over 28 years of storytelling and communications, her 2014 Master of Arts: Filmmaking and The Creative Economy (Majors: Entrepreneurship, Communications, Disruption and Filmmaking) from Kingston University, UK partially quenched her continued thirst for new knowledge. Her appointment to the Council of the Film and Publication Board of South Africa has familiarised her with the legislative requirements of board members, the prescripts of the PFMA of South Africa and King 4.
Rehad Desai
Rehad is a leading documentary filmmaker and has produced drama for TV. He was instrumental in the establishment of SASFED, its first chair, a post he resumed in 2016. He was also one of the people behind the establishment of the DFA a body that he has chaired at various points. He has sat on the IPO expo and chaired the body between 2016 -2018. He has a wealth of experience in representing these organisations over the past 15 years with an array of stakeholders, including the DTI, DOC, DAC, IDC, NFVF and is considered a leading voice in the TV and film industry
Thierry Cassuto
Thierry started out in the French TV industry and was part of the launch of several channels including M6 and Paris Premiere, then ran the Paris subsidiary of Hollywood animation studio Hanna-Barbera, before starting his own production company TVTV. He moved to South Africa in 1997 where he launched Both Worlds, a producer of scripted and unscripted television programming. Thierry is the creator of ZANEWS’ Puppet Nation the satirical puppet show which won 26 SAFTAs, 10 IAB Bookmarks and two nominations at the Emmy Awards.