Anita Khanna | Writer | Producer | Impact Producer/ co-director: Climate Story Lab ZA

South African based writer and producer, Anita Khanna, has writing and producing credits that include the award winning documentaries Miners Shot Down, Everything Must Fall and How to Steal a Country, plus a drama series for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, The Mating Game. In 2011 Anita drove the first live event of Good Pitch on African soil (Johannesburg 2011). Since then she has directed the Tri Continental Social Impact Film Festival, (2011 – 2018), and produced three documentary series. She is currently collaborating with creatives and activists in Southern Africa to make Hotspot Climate Series, a six part documentary that profiles climate justice activists in five Southern African countries. Anita is also a proud award winning Impact Producer (BritDoc Impact Award 2015) for her film campaign work on Miners Shot Down.

Liani Maasdorp | Film Lecturer | Impact Consultant/ co-director: Climate Story Lab ZA

Liani is a senior lecturer in the Centre for Film & Media Studies at the University of Cape Town. She convenes the Master of Documentary Arts degree programme, undergraduate Screen Production courses and the UCT Sunshine Cinema Film Impact Screening Facilitator short course. 

She was one of the producers of Strike a Rock, which opened the Encounters International Documentary Film Festival in 2017, screened at Sheffield DocFest, IDFA and won the Best South African Documentary award at DIFF.  She consults on and teaches impact strategy design. She has organised several impact events, including the UCT Encounters Impact Bootcamp and Impact Springboard. She is passionate about using stories to influence perceptions, behaviour and policy.

Miki Redelinghuys | Documentary Filmmaker | Impact Producer/ co-director: Climate Story Lab ZA

Miki is a documentary filmmaker who believes in the power of film and creative narratives to inspire change. She is co-founder of Plexus Films, producing creative factual content since 2000. She collaborates with film teams to devise impact strategies for their campaigns and is programme manager for the UCT Sunshine Cinema Impact course. Her documentary, This Land (2018) has been part of a nationwide series of screenings and dialogues in mining affected communities, supporting activist networks in far-flung places. She serves on the DFA board, supporting initiatives such as docLOVE film screenings and docSHARE knowledge sharing.  She has an interest in creating stories for social and climate justice across various creative platforms.

Tarha McKenzie | Programme Manager

Tarha has been an independent contractor in the film industry since 2011, focusing on Programme and Distribution Management. Her career highlights include managing Africa’s premiere documentary festival – Encounters. She helped create a pipeline for African content at Big World Cinema, coordinated the Black Women Disrupt web series competition, and managed the catalogue for TechRow – a New York based immersive educational start-up. Tarha assisted in connecting audiences and developing new business models for digital non-fiction stories at Electric South, and was the Programme Manager for their annual AR/VR lab and research projects. She is currently Project Managing the Climate Story Lab South Africa.

Thihangwi Ramutsindela | Programme Coordinator

Born in Limpopo, raised in Cape Town, Thihangwi is a second year MA student specialising in wildlife documentary and nature conservation in Southern Africa, at the University of Cape Town. She is a passionate tutor and facilitator who enjoys sparking conversations around film and environmental issues both inside the classroom and to the community around her.

Margo Cresswell | Social Media Coordinator

Margo is an aspiring documentary filmmaker, currently working on her BA Hons in Film Theory and Practice at the University of Cape Town. Margo’s graduation film, Pas de Deux, is an experimental dance film which had a successful distribution across the African continent. Currently, Margo is working as a social media coordinator for UCT TV Studio while completing her documentary thesis.

Molly Maunganidze | Administrative Officer