In their September issue the German monthly “Medium Magazin” counts me among their “Top 30 journalists under 30″ 2011. Get the party started!

I am excited about a new collaboration with Miran Films on their upcoming film called “10″. It refers to the average age of full criminal accountability in African countries and that is what it explores: The plight of young children who haven been incarcerated. Beside breathtaking images shot by other cameramen in Kenya, Sierra Leone and Zanzibar, it will feature my camera work from inside Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison and interviews with some of its former juvenile inmates.

Miran Films is run by Navdip Dhapriwal, an experienced foreign corespondent and presenter for the BBC, and multi-award-winning Sunday Times corespondent Dan McDougall.

After premiering with a big bang at the Festival du Film Pan-Africain in Cannes and being awarded the Dikalo Award, Forerunners was shown at several sold out screenings in Johannesburg and Cape Town during the South African Encounters documentary Film Festival, as well as the prestigious Durban International Film Festival and the Tri Continental Human Rights Film Festival in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town.

Director Simon Wood from Saltpeter Productions will now take it overseas for another series of shows and Festivals in New York, Los Angeles, Tennessee, Montreal and most importantly the San Fransisco United Nations International Documentary Film Festival.

I was involved in the production of Forerunners as Director of Photography in the end of 2010

For the stream of exciting news watch this space: http://www.forerunners.co.za

Facets, the doccie I shot with Lesley Odendal in Port Nolloth, South Africa and edited with my Butterfly Films partner Anna Telford over the past few months was publicly screened for the first time in Hannover, Germany during the presentation of the final works of the photography students. It was quite well received and yes, I am not a student any longer…

However slight changes in the edit will be necessary and Shane Cooper, an amazing Cape Town Jazz composer is going to treat the film to a proper sound track. I am excited to show the film to a wider public then.

Today I spent a day in the studio with Simon Wood to start working on a new project about the life, work and philosophy of Ian McCallum, a seasoned rugby player, medical doctor and poet with the working title “untamed”. It’s humbling to work with two people of such an incredible creative vision…
A first glimpse can be seen here:

Siemens, the German based technology giant, just released “Into the Light” on their website. It is a short documentary about Bruce Callaghan, a 50-year old Skateboard veteran from Durban, South Africa, I shot with Butterfly Films in the recent past. With the refurbishments in the wake of the 2010 football world cup bringing back life to the Durban beachfront, he found back to his old passion on the Bay of Plenty Skate Park.

This film is an episode for the “Answers” online documentary channel with which Siemens aim to create an interest in the web community for their products and activities around the globe. The core content of each story, however, is not the company or their technology but, rather people who in some way benefit from it. We were assigned to feature the lighting of the arch of the Moses-Mahbida-Stadium, which comprises eco-friendly LEDs manufactured by the Siemens affiliate Osram.

2470media and myself were honorably mentioned for the “excellent achievement” with “After the War” in the Internet category of this year’s Axel-Springer-Preis.