Kenya
Pre-Jury

Angola

Jorge Cohen was born and grew up in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Co-founder of Geração 80, an audio-visual production studio who’s objective has been to create links, connect generations and produce the national cinema for the last 10 years. Today the motivation still is to see Angola on screen, tell African stories and collectively make cinema. Cohen understands the role of a producer as the place to reinvent paradigms, the creation of sustainable models for producing culture.
 
Jorge holds an MA in Global Creative and Cultural Industries from SOAS, University of London (2018) and an MA degree in Business from the Catholic University of Lisbon School of Business and Economics (2009). He is on the Advisory Board for the ERC-funded project “African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies.

Burkina Faso

Amina Abdoulaye Mamani is a director/producer and marketing manager at Diam Production in Ouagadougou Diam Production in Ouagadougou, where she currently lives. She started in cinema with the African Documentary Film Forum of Niamey. Then, after 3 years of study in audiovisual at the IFTIC in Niamey, with her end of study documentary "Le Hawanidi" she won the prize for best documentary film at Fespaco 2013. In 2014, she follows a writing residency and a training in directing for 12 months, at Cinédocfilms (Annecy/France) where she directed " Le silence des papiers ", 26mn, selected at the Festival Festival of African Cinema of APT countries (France). In 2018, after a long work of research she signed "In the footsteps of Mamani Abdoulaye" her first feature documentary. (1h3mn). This film has been selected and awarded in several festivals in Africa as in Europe. In 2020, she follows a training in production at CINEKAP in Dakar. She is currently currently in post-production of her short fiction film: God's envoy.

Rwanda

Josiane Ishimwe grew up in the Western province of Rwanda where she attended high school and did Math, Chemistry and Physics combination.
 She has been awarded by the First Lady of Rwanda in 2010 as Best Performing Girl in the Western province  in the senior six national exams and become mentor of young girls in different secondary schools through Imbuto Foundation’s program which aims to guide young girls and helps them achieve their goals.

After completion of university studies in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, she worked at IHS Rwanda as Network Operating Center Engineer.  

Later on, she joined the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village at the position of Science center coordinator, and works hand in hand with trainers to create a fun and educative hands on based programs in order to encourage students to love science and technology. She has been involved in different projects to bring fun and engaging STEM subjects to young students.
Since 2018 Josiane was involved in the selection of science films for the region and coordinated the Science Film festival activities in Rwanda. She coordinated the I Am Science project in Rwanda in 2018 a project that aimed to encourage young girls to love STEM and to choose such career in the future.

In 2019, Josiane was selected to participate in an intensive leadership program called “TechWomen” for 5 weeks in the Silicon Valley.  Now she believes in the peer mentorship that is well explained with this sentence: “never let go an opportunity to be supported”

Namibia

Nadine Phiri works for the Scientific Society Swakopmund. She started as an Archivist in 2011, soon realizing that her true passion lies in history and heritage. After a short time away from the Scientific Society Swakopmund , she found herself returning as the Assistant Curator in 2019. She has a true passion for teaching, so education in the Museum environment is something she thrives on and constantly challenges herself and her team to reach new heights in. Constantly busy with a variety of projects to benefit her community, creating exhibitions and planning workshops for Ocean Month, Heritage week, Science week and even tackling issues as Autism and Mental Health . Since 2020 she serves as the Secretary for the National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and also has the privilege of being this year’s Chairperson for National Team of the Heritage week 2021. She is also an advocate for the Autism Community and serves on the Autism Coastal Namibia committee as the Vice – Chairperson.

South Africa

Tebogo Dube is a Programme Manager, she led the Heal and Connect Programme from
August 2020 till February 2021 which was aimed at giving support to the communities in
and around Johannesburg during these tough times of our lives with Covid-19
pandemic. The programme offers support to parents and/or families through
information, to Build awareness of Covid-19 and Mental Health and Support Caregivers
to help children's healing. She also the Interns Manager at Play Africa, where she
manages and guides the FirstRand interns (FirstRand First jobs initiative) through
facilitation, programmes and other duties they need to do.

She joined Play Africa in 2018 as a Play and Learning facilitator for Children’s Voices
Programme where children learn about the constitution, their rights and responsibilities
and that as children they are empowered to make a positive difference in the world as
well as learn how to participate in a democratic decision making made possible by the
Canada Fund for local initiatives. Tebogo is also assisting the team with admin/filing
clerk. She has a deep passion about playful learning and the development of children.

Tebogo has volunteered as a Service Leader at City Year SA and also became an
admin clerk for her team in the year 2007. Tebogo also coordinates events in her spare
time such as kiddies parties, baby showers and also creates handmade jewellery with
beads.

Ethiopia

His film roaster ranges from short films to documentaries and feature length films. His films have had the opportunity to reach audiences across the globe, with a few receiving commendations at the Addis International Documentary Film Festival, the New York Film and Video Festival and the Afrikikas Film Festival. His work was also nominated at Amsterdam's One-minute Film Festival and the Zanzibar Film Festival – which ultimately took place in South Africa, Namibia as well as Kampala, Shanghai and Rotterdam.

As a teacher, he has extensive experience teaching filmmaking at Addis Ababa University and the University of Gondar. Furthermore, he has taught filmmaking at Master Film School, Tibeb Ethiopia Youth Centre, Music Mayday Youth Centre and Tewaney Theatre and Film School. He also organizes events focusing on film and filmmaking at cultural institutions and youth centres in Addis Ababa.

Daniel Worku is an advocate of reading and as such, is responsible for launching an inclusive reading campaign that travelled all across Ethiopia that ran for six years. He himself has also produced a number of short stories and novels for children and youth.