Dara Kell

Dara Kell is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries explore the intersections of art, activism, and storytelling. Her acclaimed films, including Dear Mandela, a portrait of South Africa’s housing movement leaders, and An Unsettling Force, chronicling struggles for racial and economic equality in the U.S., have screened at major festivals and cultural institutions worldwide. She has lectured and led workshops at universities and conferences internationally, and her films are widely used in courses on documentary studies, African studies, human rights law, political science, and visual anthropology. She is a recipient of grants from the Sundance Institute and the Ford Foundation. Her latest series, Art of Exile, co-directed with Veena Rao, celebrates the creativity and resilience of artists displaced from their homelands, offering a nuanced lens on migration, identity, and cultural survival.