QWI

TEAM

Co-Founders & Producers


Loren Loubser | They/Them
︎ @lekkerlollas

Loren is a QIPOC, actor, filmmaker, documentarian, creative & facilitator. Loren specialises in social justice work and is one of the Co-Directors and Co-founders of FEMMEPROJECTS, a queer-owned NPC & a Mail & Guardian Top 200 South African's 2019 winner in Education. 

Loren has directed a short film documentary on forced removals in Cape Town which is currently in the works to become a feature and was recently one of the most watched short films at Durban International Film Festival. You can see Loren on Showmax starring in No Hiding Here & in High Fantasy. Loren has also recently been published as a writer in the book Touch (Sex, Sexuality & Sensuality) on a piece titled ‘Reparations Make Me Wet’. Open Wide Say Ah is a sex talk podcast that Loren hosts and is soon to be releasing it’s season 2! Find Open Wide Say Ah on all podcast platforms and get ready for season 2!

Stay tuned to your screens as Loren features in a Showmax film releasing later this year and a TV series set to release early 2022 on Mnet. Loren is also currently developing a very queer and sex positive feature film funded by the NFVF.


Francis Chouler | He/Him
︎ @francischouler

Francis is an actor, educator, and creative producer. He received his honours degree in Theatre and Performance, cum laude from the University of Cape Town in 2010.

In 2021 with support from the NFVF, Francis co-founded the Queer Writers Incubator together with Loren Loubser, pairing emergent writers of colour with mentors in the industry.

Producing Credits include Together Apart, a hybrid film/theatre work which premiered at the National Arts Festival Main Festival 2020 and Nocturne, which earned a Fleur Du Cap nomination for best director for Emily Child (2019).

Francis is a founding member and served on the executive committee of South African Guild of Actors from 2014-2016 where he headed the workshop and further education portfolio in Cape Town.

Francis teaches Business of being a Freelancer to final year students at LAMTA in Cape Town and Oakfields College in Pretoria. He has guest lectured on the subject at University of Cape Town’s Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies.

Recent acting credits include The Mauritanian (2021), opposite Jodi Foster, Dam (2021) for Showmax, and Nêrens Noord Kaap (2021) for Kyknet.


Creative Collaborators


Qondiswa James| She/They
︎ @blqgrl.radikl

Qondiswa James is a cultural worker living in Cape Town, South Africa. She is an award-winning theatre-maker, performance artist, film and theatre performer, instillation artist, writer, arts facilitator and activist. She is currently studying her Masters in Live Art, Interdisciplinary and Public Art at the Institute of Creative Arts. Her work engages the socio-political imagination towards mobilising transgression.

She has directed theatre works including Emhlab’Obomvu (National Arts Festival, 2016), Silindile (Theatre Arts Admin, 2018) and A Faint Patch of Light (nominated for Best New Director and Best Actor, Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards 2019 and winner of a 2019 Standard Bank Ovation Award) which she created under the Theatre Arts Admin Collective Emerging Theatre Directors Bursary 2018.

In September 2019 she co-created a theatrical musical exploration, Tia Maji, with percussionist Bronwen Clacherty performed as part of the supranational project Re-Centering Afro Asia. In November 2019 she curated an intervention at Infecting the City Public Art Festival in Cape Town, Jailbed, directed by Thembela Madliki. In 2020 she staged her new original play A Howl in Makhanda at Cape Town School’s Festival at Artscape, and Virtual National Arts Festival. She, along with Mandla Mbothwe, co-curated the Malibongwe Women in Theatre Festival (Magnet Theatre 2020). Her onscreen appearances include the The Foxy Five (Shnitt 2017), Umva (MOMA New York 2017), Into Us and Ours (Cannes 2016), High Fantasy (DIFF 2018 Best South African Film Award, Artistic Bravery Award), and Letters from the Continent (Holland Festival 2021). Her debut instillation work with collaborator Themba Stewart was part of Spier Light Art Festival 2019/2020. Also in 2020 for Theatre Arts Admin’s 2m apart season, she co-wrote and directed two new plays, cwaka and uBumbano, as well as a third, Uhlazo, which she wrote, directed and performed in. She is currently working as a curator on the online stop-GBV+F campaign, Body of Evidence.



Jenna Cato Bass | She/They 
︎ Jenna Cato Bass

Jenna Cato Bass is a South African writer, filmmaker and former magician. Her award-winning films include the short, The Tunnel (2010), and the collaboratively-created features Love The One You Love (2014) and High Fantasy (2017), which have screened around the world, including at the Sundance, Berlinale and Toronto Film Festivals.

Together with Wanuri Kahiu, Jenna co-wrote the coming-of-age romance, Rafiki, which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2018. Her third feature as director and writer, Flatland, was the opening film of the 2019 Berlinale Panorama.In 2019, Jenna directed the short film Sizohlala which was Executive Produced by acclaimed filmmaker Jia Zhangke. Her fourth feature film, horror-satire, Mlungu Wam, co-written with Babalwa Baartman, premiered in the Platform section of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.

Jenna also teaches Directing and Screenwriting and is a founding member of the Free Film School collective.

Queer Writers Incubator is co-produced by Femme Projects in collaboration with Free Film School
︎    @queerwritersincubator
︎    queerwritersincubator(at)gmail.com
︎    queerwritersincubator.com