Producer

Neil Brandt, a University of Cape Town graduate in psychology and law, is one of South Africa’s leading creative producers. Neil’s main focus has been the factual genre, preferring strong character-driven films with a central driving question about the world we live in. Neil is also in advanced development on a number of feature scripts and was the co-producer on the Fireworx Feature One Last Look due for release late 2012.

Neil has taken to market many award-winning documentary films, including Angola Saudades, A Lion’s Trail, The Mother’s House, History of South African Politics, Tsietsi My Hero, Courting Justice, Affectionately Known as Alex and Protection, which have won numerous best-film awards locally and internationally, including an Emmy for Artistic and Cultural Achievement, and have broadcast in over 35 territories worldwide, by, among others,  BBC, Arte, ZDF, NHK and The Sundance Channel.

In 2010 he completed Sea Point Days, which held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and subsequently competed at IDFA and the Dubai IFF amongst others. Neil has just returned from Egypt where together with long-time creative collaborator Francois Verster, he produced Storyteller in Egypt for Jazeera English.  For the film Dear Mandela (SA/USA) which premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in July 2011, he won Best South African Documentary.

His first feature film, uGugu no Andile, won best African Language Film at the African Movie Academy Awards in 2009, and best South African feature at the Cape Winelands Film Festival in 2010. Neil has also produced numerous television mini-series and sitcoms for the local South African broadcaster SABC.

He is a founding partner of established Johannesburg production and distribution company Fireworx Media (Pty) Ltd. He is a founding member of Filmmakers Against Racism (FAR) and has served on a number of industry initiatives including the SASFED/IPO Intellectual Property sub-committee, SAFTA’s judging panels, and sits on the board of the Documentary Filmmakers Association (DFA) and on the advisory board of the People2People Documentary Conference.