MEET THE CREATIVES

Mzonke Maloney is a writer and director who graduated from the New York Film Academy in 2015, having majored in Screenwriting & Directing.

During his time in Los Angeles he joined a team of fresh, young directors – The High5Collective. Together they worked on numerous projects as both directors and content creators for companies such as Partizan and Ranchhand and produced music videos for artists like Tyler the Creator, Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) and Will-i-Am.

Mzonke moved back to South Africa in 2016, where he worked as a freelancer at some of Cape Town’s leading production companies, as an assistant to one of the biggest African producers, Genevieve Hofmeyr, at Moonlighting films where he was exposed to a number of production processes including European co-production and the American studio systems, on films such as Mad max, The Dark Tower, Black Mirror (series) and numerous others.

Currently in the process of developing a number of long form projects, Mzonke has joined Carbon Collective a commercials production company, based in cape town, as a one of
their directors.

Jessie Viljoen is a SAFTA and International-Emmy nominated Film Editor working predominately in Cape Town. Over the past few years she has edited features, documentaries, TV series, music videos and commercials for various production companies and agencies.

Jessie’s passion for storytelling is inherent in all her work. Whether it’s crafting a narrative from seemingly random footage or stitching an idea from script to screen together, her aim is always to depict a story that gets the best emotional engagement from the audience. After all, nothing beats a well told story.

Darren has over ten years experience working in the Film Industry in Cape Town working as a concept artist servicing predominantly Hollywood Features.

Darren has worked on features including Maze runner, The Death Cure, The Dark Tower, Resident Evil the final Chapter and HBO’s Warrior. He worked directly with award winning production Designers including Christopher Glass (Jungle Book) and
Edward Thomas (Dr Who).

As cinephile, Darren draws most of his inspiration from films.He has been obsessed with movies from a young age and particularly fixated on cinematic composition.

He works diligently to understand composition from the masters of the craft such as Akira Kurosawa, Tarkovsky and Paul Thomas Anderson to name a few. This, in Conjunction with His drawing and painting skills enables me to create interesting and compelling visual narratives.

Nina is a 23 year old film maker from Cape Town South Africa. After completing her Bachelors degree in Film and Media in 2017, Nina went on to obtain a post-graduate degree in documentary filmmaking at the University of Cape Town.

Her work experience includes acting in a large variety of commercials, working production on sets and being a storyboard and production researcher for Off the Fence Productions.

Nina has directed two short fiction films, The Terranaut  and Night Runner, and was the editor on a short documentary film titled Little Brown Girl. All three of these have gone on to be selected for various South African and international short film festivals.

The Terranaut was part of the official selection for both the end of Days Film Festival and Fanatics Short film festival, while Night Runner was selected for four different festivals including the Big Terror Film Festival, USA, and  Feminist Border Arts Film Festival, USA. Little Brown girl is part of the official selection for the Encounters documentary film festival 2018. Nina is currently living in New York where she is completing a masters degree in Film at the New York Film Academy, as well as working in a collective of writers under the umbrella of Brown Flamingo Productions.

Julie Nxadi is a South African storyteller who is currently a Masters fellow at the Center for Humanities Research at UWC, completing her degree in the English Literature department in the Creative Writing program.

An observer, thinker and a writer, born in East London and now based in Cape Town as a fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape.

Her work has appeared in Ja. magazine, The Huffington Post, The Press Reader, Mail & Guardian and more recently, The Johannesburg Review of Books. 

Her short prose piece, ‘This is not a sad story’ was published in Edition 10 of Ja. magazine and was selected by In Bloom’s guest visual editor, Mandisa Buthelezi to be produced as a multimedia piece which forms part of the exhibition.

Alexis is a 25 year old writer, freelance translator, and film student from Cape Town South Africa.

He completed a Bachelor’s degree in French, Italian, and Spanish Literature in 2015, and a post-graduate degree in French translation in 2017. Alexis has worked as a freelance translator for a number of years, as well as a foreign language research analyst for the news agency Thompson-Reuters.

He is currently living in Barcelona where he is studying a one year degree in scriptwriting, directing, and video editing at Bande à Part film school, as well as working as a writer under the umbrella of Brown Flamingo Productions.

A writer and freelance photographer from Cape Town, South Africa.

After completing a Bachelors degree in English Literature, Psychology, and Philosophy he went on to obtain a post-graduate degree in English Literature at the University of Cape Town as well as a photography degree at the Orms Cape Town School of Photography.

His work experience includes working as an assistant director on film sets, and as a freelance writer and researcher for such production companies as Giant Films, Inspired Minority Pictures, and 0307 Films.

Marius is currently working as a freelance photographer in Cape Town as well as a writer under the umbrella of Brown Flamingo Productions.

Evan is a writer and director living and working in Johannesburg. He holds a BAFA in Fine Art from UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Art. During his time at university, his work focused on film language deconstruction as well as in-depth film studies and analysis.

He is a two time finalist in the Sasol New Signatures Competition and has participated in several group shows. Evan has produced and directed two short films, Soft Copy (2016) and Code Switch (2018) as well as several music videos including Darkie Fiction’s My Ntliziyo and Dislocation for Bobby James III.

Evan has been working in the film industry at a Johannesburg-based production company for the past two years. He has worked as an in-house researcher and has spent many hours working on large scale projects with world class crews and gear. During this time, he has also been exposed to the behind the scenes pitching, production and delivery processes. He is currently either sleeping, watching a movie, down a rabbit hole on YouTube or developing his various projects and working towards the production of his first feature.

Herman is a director, writer and artist hailing from the small coastal town of Mossel Bay in South Africa. He started working in film early 2013 after finishing his Post Graduate Diploma in New Media from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town.

He spent the past 6 years working extensively on TV commercials and feature films as a researcher (both locally and internationally) as well as taking up roles as a DOP and director on music videos and documentaries for local acts including Freshlyground and Dookoom.

In June 2019 he will open a solo exhibition with films shot in Cape Town and Finland at Kalashnikovv Gallery in Johannesburg. He was also involved in establishing EH!WOZA, a collaborative project mentoring high school learners from Khayelitsha in Cape Town to help them produce their own films documenting the effects and realities of Tuberculosis in their community. He is currently working on an adaptation of his exhibition film into a feature and a museum show opening in LA, 2020.