Wanuri Kahiu
Wanuri is part of the new generation of African storytellers and a film director. After graduating from the University of Warwick in 2001 with a BSc degree in Management Science, she enrolled for a Master's Degree at the 'Masters of Fine Arts' programme in directing at the School of Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her movie ‘From a Whisper’ received a total of twelve nominations and earned five awards at the 5th Africa Move Academy Awards in 2009. To date, Wanuri has written and directed six films. She is the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media company that supports, creates and commissions fun, fierce and frivolous African art.’Website Facebook @wanuri
Sam Soko
Sam Soko is a film director and writer based in Nairobi who seeks out stories that enable him to engage in socio-political storytelling. His work on short realist and socially conscious projects in music and fictional films has allowed him to connect and work with artists around the world, from activist creatives in South Sudan and Zimbabwe to internationally renowned artists such as Aloe Blacc. His satirical radio play the ‘New Bwana’, that speaks to hope and possibility was produced by BBC 4. For the past four years, he has been filming his first feature documentary project focusing on activism in Kenya. This strengthened his belief to continue to expose elements of humanity through narratives that dare to defy the status quo and indeed ourselves. He is co-founder of Lightbox Africa a film production company in Kenya.
Ng’endo Mukii
Ng'endo Mukii is an award-winning film director, most well-known for ‘Yellow Fever,’ her documentary-animation exploring Western influences on African women's ideals of beauty. Her work focuses on relationships, the separation between perception and reality, and the use of moving image to represent unspoken truths. At the prestigious Design Indaba conference (2015), she presented her talk, ‘Film Taxidermy and Re-Animation,’ proposing the use of animation as a means of re-humanizing the ‘indigenous’ image. Ng’endo is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (‘06), and holds a Master of Arts in Animation from the Royal College of Art (‘12). She is a Berlinale Talents Alumni (’14, ’15), a Design Indaba 2015 keynote speaker, and participated in the Grafikens Hus Artist’s residency in 2015. Her films have won numerous awards, including Silver Hugo for Best Animated Short at the Chicago International Film Festival, and Best Short Film at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards. She works in Nairobi as an independent filmmaker.