Sydelle Willow Smith

Sydelle Willow Smith is a South African storyteller, photographer, and impact producer, and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sunshine Cinema, Africa’s first solar-powered mobile cinema network. Through Sunshine Cinema’s Spark Impact Network, she trains young people across Southern Africa as Ambassadors, using renewable energy to bring film screenings and community dialogue to off-grid and underserved areas. She is also a partner at Makhulu Media, an impact production agency working with global media organisations, NGOs, and grassroots movements. Her long-term audiovisual project “Un/Settled” explores white identity and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa, the USA, and Australia. Sydelle holds a Master’s degree in African Studies from the University of Oxford and is a Rockefeller Foundation Africa BigBets Fellow and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity.