Mark Wilby

Biography

AFDA Gqeberha Campus Dean Mark has worked in various capacities in the South African film industry since the nineteen-eighties. As a production designer, he has worked on domestic (SABC, MWEB) and foreign (BBC, Channel4, Canal+) television productions, and designed numerous local and international features such as Krakatoa, Red Dust, and Mandela’s Gun. He has twice received the MNET-VITA Award for production design.

As a director, two early drama films Astor Mansions and Half-an-Hour were award-winners on the Weekly Mail Film Festival. Relocation to the Karoo in the mid-nineties prompted the pursuit of documentary film as a medium for social and environmental change.

Amidst these occupations, Mark has also practiced consistently as a conceptual artist. A personal research interest is in the expanding potential for hybrid forms of storytelling that embrace multiple media platforms. Solo and collaborative projects emerging from this practice have been exhibited locally and abroad.

Mark is attracted to the vision of the AFDA campus in Gqeberha – that of establishing itself as the cornerstone of a burgeoning industry in the Eastern Cape.