Reviving African storytelling in nature

A SOUTH African film initiative is reshaping the narrative of wildlife storytelling in Africa by empowering people who never had a chance to tell their stories from a local perspective. 

Last week creatives from across the continent landed in Durban for the annual Nature, Environment & Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF) Congress which started in 2017. The initiative is the brainchild of Pragna Parsotam-Kok and her partner Noel Kok. Both of them are filmmakers as well as National Geographic Explorers. 

Parsotam-Kok says their aim is to grow and elevate African voices in a genre where local representation remains scarce. “Through our Africa Refocused programme, in partnership with the National Geographic Society, our work is giving rise to a growing collective of passionate individuals, each dedicated to empowering themselves to make an impact,” she said. 

The couple were inspired to launch the festival after producing a nature conservation TV series that  was aired by the SABC in 2015. Despite the exposure, the experience left them financially depleted and underscored the lack of opportunities for black African filmmakers in the nature and wildlife film sector. “We noticed that we were the only black nature and wildlife filmmakers around,” said Pragna. “We wanted to change the narrative.”

Today their community boasts more that 300 fellows across 32 countries in Africa. NEWF Fellows are individuals who have completed at least one of the skills development labs offered by the organisation. Known as NEWF Labs, these labs impart skills in areas which include filmmaking, conservation and SCUBA diving. 

“One of the reasons that we were established is because Black African nature and wildlife filmmakers were rarer than most of the species scientists and conservationists were trying to protect on the planet,” said Noel. 

The other reason, he said, was that when it came to wildlife and conservation science, black Africans were usually portrayed as the poacher, pirate, ranger, or relegated to the background in films, news or storytelling. He said films produced by Europeans and Americans were particularly guilty of doing that.  “We are so much more than that, and so often they would bring international experts and international scientists to come and talk about our wildlife, to come and talk about our natural habitats. We are the only continent with all our megafauna intact. We are the only continent with so much natural habitat left,” said Noel. “It was our elders, our people who protected it for all these years. And that's why we wanted to demystify this thing that the conservation of nature and wildlife was not high on the priority list for Africans, because we have always lived very closely to the natural ways and rhythms of being.”

The only way to foster inclusivity was to share a different perspective and hear a different story from voices in Africa. Noel said this could only be achieved by changing the storyteller which is how NEWF came into existence.

“There was a lot of debate as to whether we should be a congress or whether we should be a festival. And we said, hold on, if we are a festival, whose films would we show?

“We would still be perpetuating the same old story, because by that point, we were not making any films yet.”

When the yearly gathering started in 2017, they managed to raise R200 000 rand to support four emerging filmmakers with R50 000 each to produce short wildlife films. This effort, part of the New Producers Lab, resulted in three award-winning productions that gained recognition both locally and internationally.  However, Noel says they soon identified broader systemic issues, like limited access to equipment and training, the high cost of renting equipment and that local film schools focused on fiction and commercial content, offering little support for wildlife cinematography. There was also a growing disconnect between urban African youth and the natural world. “The wildlife got locked away in game reserves and was accessible only for a privileged few,” he said, highlighting how physical and socioeconomic distance contributes to underrepresentation in the genre.

NEWF then expanded its initiatives to include mentorship programmes, cinematography labs, and collaborations with established professionals. These resources aim to provide practical education and support for young filmmakers, particularly women and individuals from historically underrepresented communities.

At the NEWF Congress in 2018, they uncovered a critical gap in African ocean storytelling; an absence of black African underwater filmmakers across the continent. Despite Africa being surrounded by over 30 000 kilometres of coastline and 38 of its 54 countries having shorelines, organisers were unable to identify a single professional black underwater filmmaker for the event. 

Noel says one Kenyan filmmaker was eventually located, but he noted that his relatively “privileged” background could still not get him the professional access required to work fully in the field. They also learnt that hundreds of marine biology students at the master's and PhD levels could not swim or dive. In 2019 the NEWF Dive Labs were established to provide training and access to diving certification for aspiring African filmmakers and marine scientists. They’ve also set up Compose Yourself Labs where they train African composers to score wildlife films. 

“Our children believe that they are NEWF fellows because they have grown up in this space,” joked Noel.  

He said they’ve been able to amplify their work because of a collaboration with the National Geographic Society. He said they approached NEWF and offered to help them scale up their work. NEWF then proposed a five year programme called Africa Refocused. “The is 100% focused on breaking down the barriers to entry, so that we can change the narrative and that the stories of Africa are increasingly told by and from the perspective of Africa's people.” Since then they have also trained fellows from other countries in the Global South. 

“When we started out with NatGeo, we were 42 fellows from eight different countries in Africa. We are now 327 fellows from 32 countries in Africa, plus an additional 25 global fellows from about 12 countries around the world,” said Kok. Through the National Geographic Society partnership, NEWF has also set up a dive centre in Sodwana Bay and is also in the process of developing a post-production facility to further support film production and training.