Conversations Across the Diaspora, hosted by Sarah Ladipo Manyika

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A new interactive series brings you eclectic conversations from across the African diaspora. Join author and host Sarah Ladipo Manyika for talks with some of the most exciting voices from Berlin to Harare, from Tamale to London and New York and everywhere in between. We’ll introduce you to all sorts of folks—some you will know, others you may never have heard of, but never the usual suspects talking about the usual topics. We’ll be speaking with everyone from actors to poets, scholars, athletes, entrepreneurs, architects, artists and many more. Come join us!

This month we feature a conversation between Sarah Ladipo Manyika and South African filmmaker Xoliswa Sithole. After you register you will receive information to join via zoom on February 12th at 12 noon (Pacific Standard Time) / 8pm (UK). If you don’t see an email from MoAD in your inbox, please check your spam or junk mailbox.

Learn about past Conversations Across the Diaspora programs, including links to recordings of the events on MoAD's blog.

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Xoliswa Sithole is a producer and director who makes films mainly about women and children, with a focus on justice, human rights, and poverty. She is the director of Nayanaya Pictures. Xoliswa started out her film career as an actress in anti-apartheid films like Cry Freedom and Mandela. She subsequently worked as a researcher for CNN and the BBC in South Africa. In 2001, she produced the award-winning documentary, Shouting Silent (shown on Showtime America), which explored the vulnerabilities of young girls who had lost their mothers to HIV/AIDS, having lost her own mother in this way. Xoliswa also worked as the South African producer on a film about the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy; directed and produced A Ribbon in the Sky, a documentary for MNET about the effects of poverty on women with disabilities; and produced a documentary on Nelson Mandela called Projek Mandela.  In 2005 she produced Orphans of Inkandla for which she won her first BAFTA Award and an International Emmy Nomination.

Other of her films include a June 2010 documentary with True Vision for Channel 4 called South Africa’s Lost Girls and a documentary for the BBC, shot entirely undercover, called Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children which won a Peabody and BAFTA awards and won best documentary at BANFF.  Xoliswa also produced and directed a project in Zimbabwe called Child of the Revolution which took her 9 years to complete. She produced and directed Standing on Their Shoulders a feminist documentary on the 1956 women’s march in SA and its domino effect on black women’s activism till present day. Some of the documentaries went on to become IMPACT Films. At present she is directing a documentary called We Shall not Die Quietly which looks at how the Global South (India, Brazil, Thailand and South Africa) fought for cheaper medicines for HIV/AIDS spearheaded by SA and asks ‘are poor people going to fight for a cheaper COVID 19 vaccine?’

Sarah Ladipo Manyika was raised in Nigeria and has lived in Kenya, France, Zimbabwe, and England. Sarah is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist and founding books editor for Ozy.com. Her debut novel, In Dependence, is an international bestseller while her second novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, has been translated into a number of languages. Her nonfiction includes personal essays and intimate profiles of people she meets from Mrs. Harris and Pastor Evan Mawarire to Toni Morrison, Margaret Busby and Michelle Obama. Sarah previously served on MoAD’s board and currently serves as Board President for the women’s writing residency, Hedgebrook. Sarah is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a San Francisco Public Library Laureate, and a member of the National Books Critics Circle.

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This program series is made possible by the generous support of Peggy Woodford Forbes