South Africa

South African director Nicole Schafer has lived in Malawi, where she produced award-winning stories for Reuters’ pan-African magazine show, Africa Journal. Schafer is the director of the production company, Thinking Strings Media. She has an MFA degree in Film and Television Production from the University of Cape Town.

Rehad Desai completed a history degree at the University of Zimbabwe, where he lived for three years. In 1996 Rehad entered the television and film industry as a Producer/Director and has since focused most of his energy on documentary productions, many of which have received critical acclaim . In 1997 he completed his Masters Degree in Social History at the University of the Witwatersrand. In 2000 he completed a postgraduate degree in television and film producing through AVEA, and in 2009 he completed a course in European Documentary Production through Eurodoc. He currently runs Uhuru Productions, a film and TV company producing documentaries and dramas, and has served as the Festival Director of the Tri Continental Film Festival for the last 10 years, and the Conference Director of the People to People International Documentary Conference.