Biography

Petrus van Staden is a South African filmmaker and producer based between New York City and South Africa. In 2019 he co-founded Vanishing Elephant with Tebogo Malebogo driven by a desire to find a way to tell meaningful stories. Their shorts have screened at Locarno, SXSW, JCC, New Directors/New Films, and New York Film Festival and have won multiple awards, being distributed to spaces such as Mubi, Topic, Canal + Poland and WatchArgo. He has worked between South Africa, Tanzania and the USA - producing independent work as well as an episode for Netflix's African Folktales Reimagined Anthology series. He is passionate about diversity, collaboration, finding ways to tell and uplift marginalized stories, and exploring how to tell those stories authentically and just. Apart from the selections mentioned above, he has been part of productions selected for Sundance, IFFR, Oberhausen, and Durban - bringing professionalism and quality storytelling to everything he involves himself with.