Wildlife filming collective develops Africa’s Attenboroughs

Noel Kok and Pragna Parsotam-Kok are not your typical couple. The Durban-based duo is on a mission to reshape African wildlife and nature narratives, one story at a time. Both are filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers – individuals who receive funding and support from the US National Geographic Society (NGS) to help protect the world through their work.

Stories about the African continent have been shared around the world for decades, but rarely, if ever, have those stories been told by African people. As Noel puts it, “Black African nature and wildlife filmmakers were rarer than most of the species scientists and conservationists are trying to protect on the continent of Africa.”

Thanks to Noel and Pragna’s work, this is beginning to change. In 2017 they co-founded Nature, Environment, and Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF) to build capacity for African people to tell stories about their environment in a way that reflects their perspectives and experiences. The mission of NEWF is simple but transformative: “How do you change the story? You change the storyteller,” says Noel.

‘The most unbelievable family gathering’

In the years since NEWF’s creation Noel and Pragna have empowered a community of aspiring African storytellers, called NEWF Fellows, to gain access to the tools and skills needed to succeed within the global film industry. The annual NEWF Congress and NEWF Fellows Summit allow networking and discussion and debate, which Noel describes as “the most unbelievable family gathering”.

The NEWF Labs provide specialist training such as dive certification, cinematography, music composition, and science communication. NEWF’s growth and impact was soon noticed by the NGS, which offered resources, expertise, and funding to amplify their work further, and to enable them to continue fostering genuine collaboration and impactful and lasting results.

Five years after the launch of NEWF, the Africa Refocused programme was launched, as a collaboration between NEWF and the NGS. This scaled up NEWF’s offering across the continent, elevated its mission of supporting African filmmakers to traverse the global film industry, and empowered local filmmakers and conservation scientists to reshape the narrative of African wildlife and nature storytelling.

It is just over two years since the launch of Africa Refocused, and its star keeps on growing. In this time, the community of filmmakers involved in their programmes has grown from 59 fellows across eight countries to 250 fellows from 32 countries, and is still growing. Its impact is being felt not only across the continent, but across the world.

A group of fellows have just completed two films for Wild Hope, an international digital film series showcasing those shoring up the future of the planet, which has been commissioned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios in the US. The studio set up African Science Film Fellowships, together with Gorongosa National Park and Africa Refocused. For the past 18 months, a number of fellows, scientists, conservationists, and filmmakers were involved in pitching and developing a natural history series with Scottish production company Maramedia. They set about telling the story of West Africa’s natural history, embracing NEWF’s vision of African-led storytelling, and the series has already piqued the interest of international broadcasters.

A group of fellows who composed the score for the NGS’s film Nkashi: Race for the Okavango won the Jackson Wild 2023 Media Award in the “Original Music Score” category, beating competition including world-renowned composer Hans Zimmer.

The fellows have also gone on to spread their wings independently of NEWF, in roles that support the film industry and local economies across Africa.

Zambian wildlife cinematographer Samson Moyo has worked on several films in Africa and since founded his own production company, Mosam Media.

Marine conservation

Tanzanian marine scientist Nancy Iraba, also a National Geographic Explorer, is a co-founder and underwater programme lead at Aqua-Farms Organization, a marine conservation and food security NGO. She has pioneered coral restoration efforts on Mnemba Island off the coast of Zanzibar. She has helped to restore more than 10,000 corals in degraded reef sites and established an underwater coral farm on the southern coast of Tanzania.

The protection of underwater environments is just as important for NEWF as protecting the landscape, and its impact is making waves on the oceans.

Last year NEWF celebrated the opening of the Sodwana Bay Storytelling, Research and Dive Center in South Africa, affectionately known as eKhaya, a Zulu word meaning “home”. Close to iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and popular diving location, the centre offers dedicated training in skills such as underwater cinematography, and dive certification. eKhaya is managed by Silindile Mbuyazi, who is the first local black African to manage a facility of this kind in the region.

Now, she provides teaching and training opportunities to so many like her from her own community.

As Noel explains, “eKhaya is a place that the fellows call home,” and, in alignment with NEWF’s mission, it offers a space for African storytellers, scientists and conservationists to come together and nurture their creative vision and dedication to changing the narrative of stories about the African continent.

For Noel and Pragna, their venture is going from strength to strength. With so many initiatives, what would the ultimate success metric look like for them?

‘Build our own African audiences’

“I think the critical thing will be when we successfully build our own African audiences,” Noel says. “And we’ve already started it. We’ve got a number of national broadcasters across Africa starting to license the content that the filmmakers are producing.”

It isn’t only national broadcasters that are interested in NEWF’s content. Many of the fellows were born in the late 1990s or early 2000s and have grown up knowing their way around digital platforms such as YouTube and how popularity there can be leveraged to create an engaged community of viewers around the world.

It is community, whether on the continent or around the world, that is truly at the heart of NEWF’s vision and mission. So what do Noel and Pragna hope their legacy will look like?

“The protection of Africa’s wildlife is organically led by African voices in partnership with people from all across the world,” says Noel. “That’s where the legacy is going to be.”

In a field that has long been shaped by outside voices, the work of these leaders represents a new chapter for conservation in Africa – one where the continent’s diverse, vibrant stories are told by those who know it best. As they continue to nurture new generations of storytellers, their impact could reshape the way the world thinks about conservation.