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Bio

Dara Kell is an award-winning South African filmmaker and fiction writer. She is making a documentary about Reverend William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign; the film is slated for release in early 2023. Her previous documentary as a director was “Dear Mandela,” a film about three courageous young South African slum dwellers who lead a social movement to stop mass evictions. The film was the centerpiece of a global impact campaign led by slum dweller activists in India, Nigeria, Brazil and South Africa, and is part of the curriculum in many law schools around the world. Her short film “A Ship From Guantanamo'' is a New York Times Op-Doc and is part of the “Art of Exile” series of shorts about censorship and creativity, co-directed with filmmaker Veena Rao. Her films have been broadcast on PBS, TVFrance, and Netflix, and screened at festivals worldwide. Dara is a journalism graduate of Rhodes University and is working towards a Master's degree in Visual History at University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Dara’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Ford Foundation among others.