The Ntintili Factory

The Ntintili Factory is a full production house that specialises in producing proudly and unashamedly African centred stories for a local and global market. Most recently, The Ntintili Factory created and produced the original Netflix drama series Jiva! which can be seen by audiences in the 193 countries on Netflix’s global platform. The Ntintili Factory’s work ranges from creating, developing and producing the SAFTA nominated SABC drama mini-series “Noah’s Ark”, the etv telenovela “Isipho”, Moja Love’s telenovela “Hope”, the Mzansi Magic telenovela “Greed and Desire”, developing the Mnet drama series “Ikhaya” and creating and producing the Mzanzi Magic drama mini-series “Vuka Mawu Lele”. On the corporate and documentary side, The Ntintili Factory has produced documentaries, museum exhibitions and corporate videos. Highlights include producing a Parliamentary documentary film “Sivelaphi, Siyaphi”, about the 1956 Women's March, in which some of the original 1956 women embarked on the very same train journey they took then, only this time engaging in an intergenerational dialogue with activists from the 1976 student uprisings and the current generation of entrepreneurs, to examine how far women have come in this new democracy and how far we still have to go. Another highlight is the team directing a series of 25 short films for the launch exhibition of the prestigious Freedom Park Museum, which aims to uplift, honour and educate South Africans on our Indigenous Knowledge Systems and how those systems were used to fight the injustices of Apartheid.

The company is founded and headed up by industry veteran Busisiwe Ntintili. Ms Ntintili herself is a multiple award-winning film and television writer, director, producer and trainer. Over the span of 20 years, she has created, written, directed and / or produced some of South African televisions most critically acclaimed and most watched series and films, including writing the box office hit “Happiness is a Four Letter Word”, which is the highest grossing black produced film in South Africa, developing and writing the second season of the Peabody Award winning HIV / AIDS drama series “Intersexions” and creating and writing the SAFTA Award winning “4Play, Sex Tips for Girls”. And her work in combatting the HIV/AIDS pandemic at its height was further seen in her creating and writing the wildly popular teen film about abstinence called “The Bet”, from the John Hopkins “Heartlines” series as well as being part of developing and writing the LoveLife campaign. A woman of many firsts, Ms Ntintili is the first black Head Writer of a major daily when she took that position for Generations in the early 2000s, the first black female screenwriter to write a local box office hit, when she adapted and wrote the screenplay for Happiness, earning the film of the year in the 2016 Mbokodo Awards, one of the first black female Showrunners in the country, as well as the third original drama series to be commissioned and produced out of African continent for Netflix with the electric dance series, Jiva!. Her work has been seen throughout the African diaspora and in Europe, Asia and the Americas. She worked closely with Alyson Feltes, of “Ozarks” fame, as scriptwriter on the South African/Canadian co-production drama series “Jozi H”.

The Ntintili Factory believes in training the next generation of storytellers and the company has trained and mentored emerging black storytellers in film and television for the past two decades. The company’s vision is to contribute to restoring the pride of the South African child, and to highlighting the beauty, originality and humanity of South Africans through compelling, challenging and introspective stories that tell us who we are and who we can be.