Fireworx Media was formed in 2008, bringing together experienced Southern African producers Bridget Pickering, Dan Jawitz and Neil Brandt. The company produces original content for multiple platforms and genres and has a reputation for high quality, entertaining productions that bring an imaginative and vital perspective of the African continent to the world. Its products look for the complexity, imagination and humour in ordinary lives.

The company has filmed across the African continent, from South Africa to Sierra Leone, from Angola to Kenya, and has extensive experience in distribution, sales and marketing. Its projects have been commissioned or co-produced with a range of international broadcasters including ZDF, ARTE, BBC, PBS and SABC. Funders include the Sundance Fund, Hubert Bals Fund, the Jan Vrijman Fund, ITVS, Africalia, Fonds Sud, the National Film and Video Foundation and the Open Society Foundation. These include PROTECTION (2010), UNSUNG HEROES (2010), SEA POINT DAYS (2009), U-GUGU NO ANDILE (2008), AFFECTIONATELY KNOWN AS ALEX (2008), COURTING JUSTICE (2007), THE MOTHERS' HOUSE (2006), TSIETSI MY HERO (2006), GLIMPSE (2005), ANGOLA: SAUDADES FROM THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU (2003) and many more.

Fireworx Media is a certified Level 4 BEE company.


Fireworx Media (Pty) Ltd is an integrated production and distribution company. We produce original content for multiple platforms and provide distribution to African films seeking global audiences.

Fireworx Media is proud to be one of the most awarded production companies in South Africa. Between them, Neil, Bridget and Dan have made fiction and non-fiction films for television and cinema that have earned them a reputation for producing quality content and whose work reflects powerful stories about a rapidly changing world.

With our roots in Africa, we have a strong vision of our place in the globe and we are acutely aware of the rapidly evolving nature of content generation and distribution and the impact that has on the power of the South to tell its stories according to its own rules.

We actively pursue relationships with filmmakers and broadcasters across the planet. We are currently in the process of opening up a satellite office in Sao Paulo, and we regularly work across the Middle East. We are currently executive producing a series of 19 films for the CCTV series "Faces of Africa".

Our television programmes have been broadcast by Arte, Al Jazeera, Sundance Channel, BBC, PBS, ZDF, NHK, MNET, SABC, amongst others. Our films have been funded by private equity, institutional funders and broadcasters. These include the Industrial Development Bank (IDC) the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), ITVS, the Sundance Documentary fund, Fonds Sud, The SA Department of Trade and Industry, Spier Films, the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Hot Docs Blue Ice Fund, the Hubert Bals Fund, Sonke Gender Justice Network, World Vision, NORAD, Open Society and others.

While our core focus is independent productions with directors who have a strong voice, we also work on commissions that speak to our value system, providing end-to-end audio-visual solutions best suited to the communication needs of our clients. We are committed to a creative process of working with the best available talent in ways that will always ensure a synergy between the concept, the creation and the final product.

The Sales and Distribution division of Fireworx Media focuses on South African and African long fiction and non-fiction, handling sales of DVD on a non-exclusive basis and broadcast rights on an exclusive basis.