Dara Kell is an award-winning writer and director from Cape Town. Her latest film “A Ship From Guantanamo'' is a New York Times Op-Doc and has screened at film festivals around the world. Dara’s first film “Dear Mandela” was broadcast on PBS, TVFrance, and Netflix, and won multiple awards including the Grand Jury Prize at the Durban International Film Festival. Her short story "Small Holding" won the Zoetrope All:Story Fiction Contest in 2015 and her story "Exchanges" was selected for the 2020 Masters Review Anthology Volume IX, with Rick Bass.
Dara has been a Story Advisor at the SKOLL Foundation / Sundance Institute ‘Stories of Change’ Convening, and her work as an editor was featured in the Albert Maysles film “Iris” and the Academy Award-nominated “Jesus Camp”. Trained as an investigative journalist, Dara is a graduate of Rhodes University and is working towards a Master's degree in Visual History at University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Dara’s work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Ford Foundation, among others.