Dara Kell is a South African filmmaker and writer based in Cape Town. She is making a documentary about Reverend William Barber and civil disobedience in America; the film is slated for release in late 2022. 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 community engagement project to inspire young people in slums to become leaders and is part of the curriculum in many law schools around the world. Her editing work was featured in the Albert Maysles film “Iris” and the Academy Award-nominated “Jesus Camp.” She worked with Doc Society to produce a podcast about women at the forefront of climate justice around the world, hosted by Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland. She was a field producer and writer on the XQ Institute’s documentaries about rethinking high school education, broadcast on NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox and featuring Viola Davis and Tom Hanks. The show had 26 million viewers. Dara nurtures longstanding relationships with organizations whose work she admires. These include the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, PEN America, and the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the Science & Technology Train, bringing cutting edge STEM education to rural youth in South Africa. Dara is also an award-winning fiction writer. Her short story "Small Holding" won the Zoetrope All:Story Fiction Contest in 2015 and her story "Exchanges" was published in the 2020 Masters Review Anthology Volume IX, selected by Rick Bass. Her films have been broadcast on PBS, TVFrance, and Netflix, and screened at festivals worldwide. Dara is a graduate of Rhodes University and is working towards a Master's degree in Visual History at University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She is currently at work on her first novel and a collection of short stories about 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.
October, 2016. Panelist. "Storytelling and South Africa" - Ford Foundation, New York
October 2015. Media Advisor at the SKOLL Foundation / Sundance Institute ‘Stories of Change’ Convening
April 2014. Guest Speaker. World Urban Forum 7, Medellin, Colombia.
April, 2013. Panelist. "Social Storytelling in the Age of Data - Meaning & Momentum". - United Nations Communications Workshop, New York