About EKWA MSANGI (WRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER): Ekwa has written & directed several shorts, most recently award-winning comedy Soko Sonko (The Market King), recipient of the Ousmane Sembène Short Film Development award, which produced her newly released film Farewell Meu Amor starring Tony Award nominee Sahr Ngauja, and actress Nana Mensah of the famed series An African City. She is currently in development on the feature-length sequel Farewell Amor and received the 2018 Jerome Foundation Grant and Tribeca All Access Fellowship to that end.

Ekwa has also written & directed several drama series for mainstream broadcasters in Kenya and MNET South Africa, including The Agency, MNET’s first ever original hour-long Kenyan drama series. Ekwa was selected for the 2012 Focus Features’ Africa First Program and the 2016 Berlin Talent Campus. In the past Ekwa has been adjunct faculty at Tisch School of the Arts, as well as a recurring mentor in Mira Nair’s East Africa based Maisha Screenwriting Labs. Currently Ekwa is the resident educational instructor with the African Film Festival, teaches Screenwriting 3 at The New School, and Short Film Screenwriting at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, Brooklyn College.

Ekwa’s first webseries All My Friends Are Married launched to rave reviews, and she is in development on her first feature documentary about Tanzania’s first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and her award-winning podcast entitled African Cinema NOW!