Shmerah Passchier

Dr Shmerah Passchier has worked in the film & television industry writing, directing & producing for MTV Base where she travelled to 10 African countries shooting the TV show titled Uncensored in Nigeria, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Kenya, Botswana, Angola, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia.

Shmerah has directed Magazine TV & Reality TV shows & documentaries for SABC including Hybrid Living, The Cut, KADA! & Big Brother Africa for DSTV. Shmerah has directed several commercials and many music videos, and directed the documentary titled, Nelson Mandela & the End of Apartheid for the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco.

Shmerah has shifted her focus towards Virtual Reality filmmaking, winning the Digital Lab Africa artist residency and grant funding to make two Virtual Reality films titled The Cosmic Egg, & The Eye of Rre Mutwa in 2020. Both films screened at the Virtual National Arts Festival in 2020 & at the RapidLion Film Festival & the FNB Art Fair in 2021. After further remastering the films in post-production, they will show at Fak’ugesi Digital Art Festival in Johannesburg & at Forum Creation Africa in Paris in 2023.

Shmerah holds a PhD in Virtual Reality at Wits, an MFA in Film from AFDA & an MA in Anthropology from Wits.

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