BACKGROUND
Milisuthando Bongela-Davis (b.1985, South Africa) is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, cultural worker and artist. Her career began in the fashion industry but the last 18 years have seen her traverse the worlds of music, art, media and film - continually turning towards Southern African indigenous knowledge systems and storytelling modes. She was the Arts Editor for the Mail & Guardian's Friday section and was host and co-producer of the podcast Umoya: On African Spirituality with Dr. Athambile Masola.
FILMMAKING
The first film she ever directed, a personal essay documentary titled MILISUTHANDO had its ‘In Competition’ World Premier at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and selected for Moma’s New Directors/New Films programme 2023 before opening the 2023 Encounters Documentary Film Festival and traveling to many festivals in 6 continents including DIFF, IDFA, Cartagena IFF, True / False, Hot Docs, Camden IFF, Sheffield IFF, Melbourne IFF, Bombay IFF, American Film Institute and San Francisco IFF. It was nominated and won awards (International Documentary Association, DIFF, Encounters) for its groundbreaking form, subject matter and approach to personal filmmaking.
Produced by Marion Isaacs and Milisuthando Bongela and edited by Hankyeol Lee, MILISUTHANDO is Co-Production with Viso Producciones (Colombia) with Multitude FIlms (US), Charlotte Cook (US + UK), Brenda Robinson (US) and D.D. Wigley (US) as Executive Producers. Lesedi Oluko Moche (SA) worked on the film as Associate Producer and the Sales Agent was Cinetic Media. The film is distributed by The Cinema Guild in North America and by Sinema Films in South Africa. It is currently looking for distribution partners in the rest of the world.
DISTRIBUTION
MILISUTHANDO is the first feature length film by a South African director to be distributed by The Criterion Channel. Between 2024 and 2025, MILISUTHANDO had its theatrical release in the U.K through a distribution initiative between the BFI and The Tape Collective, an independent distributor for films by women of colour. This saw it screened in 18 cities across the U.K over a period of 3 months, with PR that included a 4 star review in The Guardian, a feature on Nowness and a BBC Africa hour long interview. There were also roundtables with other filmmakers including Cauleen Smith, whose film DRYLONGSO was one of the featured films alongside MILISUTHANDO, JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE IRT and ALMA’S RAINBOW. This led to further invitations to screen the film in Europe, including a special screening at the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) on the invitation of filmmaker and author Tsitsi Dangarembga. In New York, MILISUTHANDO had a week-long theatrical run at The Anthology Film Archives in May 2025 followed by a screening at the New York African Film Festival.
In the education space, MILISUTHANDO has been invited to screen (and some workshops) at The University of Cape Town, The University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch University, UKZN, Nelson Mandela University, University of Pretoria, UNISA, Rhodes University, Wits University, Brown University, The California Institute for the Arts, Duke University, Harvard University, Yale University and Swarthmore University and Dartmouth among others. At Indiana University, it was formally acquired by the renowned Black Film Centre and Archives.
In April 2025, the film was invited for a screening and lecture at Bronwyn Lace and William Kentridge’s The Centre For The Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, followed by a sold out screening at the Afro Visionaries Film Club and an encore screening at First Wednesdays Film Club.
FUNDRAISING
Through this project, and in partnership with Marion Isaacs, Milisuthando has raised development and production funding from the following partners: The NFVF, Hot Docs Blue Ice, Sundance Documentary Fund, Chicken & Egg Films, IDFA Bertha, Doc Society, Field of Vision, The Whickers, The Dobkin Family Foundation and the FDC/ Proimágenes Colombia.
Independently, as a producer, Milisuthando has fundraised for her through The Inmaat Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The Godmother LLC in the U.S.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Milisuthando and is currently working on her second feature film with collaborator Hankyeol Lee, a documentary and fiction hybrid titled “The Dinner” as well as her first fiction feature film, a comedy co-produced with Kagiso Lediga and Tamsin Andersson of Diprente.
Her first short, an experimental silent film commissioned by Neo Muyanga for Bronwyn Lace and William Kentridge’s Centre for the Less Good Idea is available on milisuthando.com
She is an inaugural fellow of the 2020 Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship and lives in Harlem, New York with her husband Warren.
