THE UMAMA TEAM

A filmmaker born and raised in South Africa. Her country’s rich heritage inspired her storytelling aspirations from a young age. At 18 she followed her dreams and studied Film & TV at NYU’s Tisch School of the arts. She has focussed her filmmaking career on true stories- highlighting ordinary people with extraordinary stories. Inspired by resilience and joy in the face of adversity, many of her films have thus far been centred around South African and Female lead narratives. Her latest film UMAMA was shortlisted for a student BAFTA and received the Gold Medal at the Student Academy Awards.

Nora graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film & Television in 2019. Throughout her time at NYU, her work producing over 30 short films and music videos kept her as close to home as New York and as far away as South Africa. She began her professional career as a production coordinator on commercials and later for Comedy Central’s Doing the Most with Phoebe Robinson. Currently she’s a staff production coordinator at Hornet.

A Film and Television student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts to pursue her aspirations of executive producing for TV. Amongst her latest work, she produced a music video and web series. Her intern experience has expanded from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to her current position as Lorne Michaels’s intern at Saturday Night Live. She was recently awarded The Producer’s Grant on behalf of UMAMA.

Film and Television student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts to pursue her aspirations of producing short-form content. Amongst her latest work, she produced and directed a hip hop music video with 2 upcoming artists from Kuwait and is currently interning at Complex Networks. She is passionate about the true story behind Umama and eager to be a part of the project.

An Actor and Producer from South Africa, with a Bachelors degree in Live Performance. She was an Assistant Producer on the multi-award-winning film The Suit which starred Atandwa Kani & Phuthi Nakene and featured John Kani. She has spent the past year as a Production Manager for the production company Good Hustle and she is the Production Manager for a local radio station’s, 5FM, TV crew.

A South African filmmaker, creative and visionary. After graduating from AFDA Johannesburg, majoring in film producing, she further explored visual expression through various mediums including music videos, videography and photography. She is currently working as a freelance editor and photographer as well as producing and organising her first fashion styled photo shoot.

Her career started in the South African film industry in 1988 and finally ended as a producer in the corporate launch industry both as a producer and creative director. During this time she won the National prize for her launch video on every section – direction, editing etc but couldn’t receive the award because she was giving birth to a future film director Talia Smith.

A director and cinematographer currently finishing up his final year at NYU Tisch School of the Arts studying Film and TV Production. He has spent the past year as the DP for various documentaries, commercials, and music videos, whilst also exploring the creative-professional world through freelance video and graphic design. He is thrilled and hard at work to visually bring “Umama” to life.