Wim Steytler

Wim Steytler is part of the new wave of young, fearless filmmakers rising from the African continent. Hailing from a family of pioneering writers who challenged the apartheid regime in the 60s, Wim is an award-winning director with a compulsive drive for authenticity and creating poetic and powerful imagery. Wim cut his teeth by earning a BA degree in fine art and visual communication, editing for six years and being mentored by South Africa's top commercial directors while working as a creative researcher. Wim directed TV commercials at Picture Tree in Johannesburg for four years (2013-2017). In his directorial debut, he picked up a prestigious Young Director Award in 2014 at the Cannes Film Festival for his narrative music video about xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg's underbelly of hijacked buildings. Since then, Wim has directed ads from Asia to Europe, and has developed a reputation for his cinematic documentary commercials. Wim was awarded Best Director at the Silwerskerm Film Festival in Cape Town in 2015 for his first narrative short Skewe Reënboog, and premiered the film internationally at Claremont Ferrand, the world's most prestigious short film festival, in France in February 2017. His latest short documentary Black Black Metal investigates the rise of African punk and metal in townships of Soweto. It went viral after it was featured on prominent blogs like The Daily Beast, ID Vice and The Fader. His upcoming feature film The Sovereign was selected for the 2016 Realness Screenwriting Residency, European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs 2017 and has been selected for La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde 2017, a project development platform for ten films from emerging markets during the Cannes Film Festival.