Nomanzi Palesa Shongwe-Filmmaker and teacher

Nomanzi PalesaShongwe is a filmmaker and teacher.  Her short film uNomalanga and the Witch won Best Short Film at the Durban International Film Festival (2015), and The Baobab Short Film Prize at Film Africa, UK (2016).  It has nearly 500 00 views on youtube 

 

Nomanzi grew up in Johannesburg  She abandoned her law studies to embark on a career in film. A short film submission led to being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and she completed a Masters of fine arts in film making at Temple University in Philadelphia. Most recently she was a lecturer at the Wits University Film School.

 

She met Presidents Clinton and Obama as part of different South African delegations to the USA and we chatted about the changing US attitude to the USA over the years. 

 

We had a wide-ranging discussion that ranged from her high school years at Parktown Girls High School that straddled the early years of our democracy and the pressure to assimilate that is still being felt by many young professionals in particular today.

Nomanzi also spoke about the process and aesthetics film-making and what she wants to achieve in her films.

As her bio puts it she "is interested in narratives that focus on the lives of women in the context of a feminist and decolonial African filmmaking".

Watch uNomalanga and the Witch here.