François Verster was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1969. After school he travelled for a year before starting his studies, architecture at first and then writing at the University of Cape Town under internationally renowned author and critic J.M. Coetzee. After receiving his MA, he moved to New York where he worked for Barenholtz Productions, the company that produced films such as Raising Arizona and Barton Fink for the Coen brothers. He also served as a crew member on various independent features. In the UK, he worked for the BBC as a news producer for BBC Breakfast News and as a researcher for television documentaries. His debut as documentary director/producer, Pavement Aristocrats: The Bergies of Cape Town (1998), was received to wide acclaim. The film was broadcast on SABC3, Canal Plus and the prestigious YLE-TV2 (Finland), received several awards and was screened at festivals around the world. The Story of ‘Mbube’ (1999), a 12-minute documentary on the fate of the most famous song ever to come from Africa, was completed as a 52-minute film called A Lion’s Trail (2003). It won an Emmy Award in 2006 and is one of his films that is screened at this festival. The other films are When the War is Over (2002), which looks at two survivors of the anti-Apartheid struggle, and The Mothers’ House (2005), about a troubled teenager growing up in a township outside Cape Town. In addition to his films, François Verster has published poems, short stories and reviews, as well as articles in magazines and various international academic journals, including DOX, the magazine published by the European Documentary Network.