Alma Film Festival Announces South African Documentary Jozi, I Write My Story as an Official Selection
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A poetic portrait of Johannesburg and the dreamers shaping its future
The Alma Film Festival proudly announces the selection of Jozi, I Write My Story, a visually striking documentary directed by emerging South African filmmaker Mandisa Mary-Jane Mtembu.
Set against the sprawling energy of Johannesburg—often called the City of Gold—the film explores the tension between ambition, creativity, and survival in one of Africa’s most dynamic urban centers. Through interviews, personal reflections, and evocative cityscapes, the documentary examines how individuals navigate opportunity and adversity while attempting to shape their own legacy.
Jozi, I Write My Story follows Mtembu herself as a young creative confronting a central question: In a city full of possibility and pressure, how do you define the story you want to leave behind?
The film weaves together the voices of Johannesburg residents who have transformed the city’s energy into purpose alongside those whose dreams have been challenged by its realities. The result is an introspective and visually expressive portrait of a city where creativity and struggle coexist—and where legacy is ultimately a choice.
Director Mandisa Mary-Jane Mtembu, born in Taung, South Africa, has built a reputation for storytelling grounded in authenticity and cinematic poetry. Her work blends striking imagery with emotional depth, earning recognition from the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) and international acknowledgment through the Sony Future Filmmakers Award in Los Angeles.
With Jozi, I Write My Story, Mtembu continues her commitment to amplifying untold narratives and exploring the cultural forces shaping modern African identity.
The selection of Jozi, I Write My Story is part of a broader collaboration with Nosipho van den Bragt, founder and CEO of Chocolate Tribe in South Africa. Through this partnership, Chocolate Tribe has played an important role in curating several films from the region as official selections for the Alma Film Festival.
The festival is proud to work alongside van den Bragt and the Chocolate Tribe team, whose commitment to elevating African storytelling aligns closely with Alma’s global vision. This collaboration represents the beginning of what both organizations hope will be a long-term partnership dedicated to highlighting powerful voices and expanding opportunities for filmmakers across the continent.
The film will screen as part of the Alma Film Festival’s international program, which highlights bold storytelling from the Global South and filmmakers examining the social, cultural, and economic realities shaping their communities.
About the Alma Film Festival
The Alma Film Festival is a tech-driven international film festival created to address structural gaps in the global film industry. The festival focuses on films and filmmakers from the Global South, creating deeper engagement between artists, audiences, and cultural institutions while exploring cinema’s role in shaping society.
About the Alma Film Festival
The Alma Film Festival was created in response to structural gaps in the global film ecosystem. By design, it is a next-generation destination, experience-based film festival and cultural convening—one that functions as a cultural intelligence engine, bringing together filmmakers, scholars, technologists, artists, institutions, and audiences from across the Global South and its diasporas.
Rooted in scholarship, innovation, and deep audience engagement, Alma prioritizes fewer films with greater intentionality, creating space for meaningful dialogue, relationship-building, and long-term collaboration. With up to 80% of the program dedicated to Global South cinema, the festival showcases narrative features, documentaries, shorts, animation, experimental works, audio storytelling, and new media—centering films that engage cultural memory, social relevance, and creative innovation.
Programming is curated in partnership with global entities and agencies, reinforcing Alma’s role as a platform for shared authorship rather than extraction. Through this approach, the festival has cultivated a global community of stakeholders spanning more than 51 cities across 35 countries.
Beyond screenings, Alma integrates fellowships, symposia, performance laboratories, editorial platforms, and emerging technologies—positioning the festival not simply as an event, but as an ecosystem. Guided by the principle “The Necessity of Something New,” the Alma Film Festival advances cultural diplomacy, fosters cross-regional collaboration, and contributes to the development of sustainable creative economies worldwide.
At its core, the Alma Film Festival is a global gathering designed to nurture both ideas and people. It embraces a kaleidoscope of cultures while intentionally shifting the social dynamic from competition to connection—creating space for collaboration, understanding, and shared growth. Alma moves us from extraction to exchange, from visibility to value, and from presence to purpose.
We are doing something new.
There is a necessity for something new.
#AlmaFilmFestival
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