South Africa

Born in 1980 in South Africa, Arya Lalloo is an independent filmmaker of mixed heritage based in Johannesburg. She has written and directed documentaries for South African broadcast as well as the outreach documentary Citizen X, which explored the reactions of social movements to xenophobic violence in peri-urban townships. More recent work includes writing and directing on Alexandra! My Alexandra, a historical documentary series about the famous township of the same name, and the feature documentary Jeppe on a Friday (co-directed with Shannon Walsh) that paints an intimate and sensory portrait of life in a regenerating Johannesburg neighborhood. Arya is broadly interested in urban identities and social histories in post-apartheid South Africa and beyond. Much of her work is driven by a need to identify and provoke popular misperceptions and misrepresentations of contemporary urban African experience, by exploring, reimagining and celebrating these often-invisible identities and histories.

Filmography

It Happened to Me (2008)
The Father Inside (2009)
Citizen X (2010)
Alexandra! My Alexandra (2012)
Jeppe on a Friday (2012)