BRIAN TILLEY, Director/Producer, South Africa

Brian Tilley started out as a member of the Afravison Video Collective documenting the struggles that swept away the Apartheid government in South Africa. He shot and directed several award winning documentaries that were screened on television around the world. Amongst them are ‘Fruits of Defiance’, ‘Jo’burg Stories’ and ‘It’s My Life’, which were screened in the JorisIvens competition at IDFA and on several international television channels. Brian has produced 15 short films for the Steps’ ‘Why Democracy’ documentary series and subsequently produced eight long and 40 short films for the global ‘Why Poverty’ series that was sold to 70 international broadcasters. He has also been the consultant producer on the Emmy Award winning documentary ‘Miners Shot Down’, and also ‘Beats of the Antonov’ which won the Toronto International Film Festival Audience Award for Documentaries.

Tilley has also directed four films for the Al Jazeera documentary series ‘Lifelines’ and the six-part documentary series ‘My Nigeria’, ‘My Cuba’ and ‘My Tunisia’. And he has initiated, head-written and directed several South African drama series. He wrote and directed the mini-series ‘The Line’ (aka ‘In a Time of Violence’) co-produced with Channel Four, YLE and ARTE, which sold to 32 countries. He co-wrote the feature film ‘Victim’, the drama series ‘Jacob’s Cross’ and the crime series ‘Orion’. He has directed the award winning short ‘Lucky Day’ and has also been the story consultant on Khalo Mathabane’s feature film ‘The Number’, which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2017.

He has been Script Editor for many prestigious projects as well. He also co-wrote Akin Omotoso’s 2019 Nigerian feature film THE GHOST IN THE HOUSE OF TRUTH.