Dylan Valley

Who is Dylan Valley?

Dylan Valley is an award winning South African filmmaker, born and raised in Cape Town. He has directed work SABC, Al Jazeera, and independently.

In 2009, he was selected in The Mail and Guardian's list of 300 Young South Africans you have to take to lunch. Valley grew up in Kuils River and then the white suburb of Durbanville where he faced being the only coloured child in the neighborhood. From this experience, he was pushed into the hip-hop music that constructed his identity. The Hip-Hop music genre led valley to incorporate this style within his another passion that is documentary filmmaking. And now, we can see his work which is a mix of music, art, performance, that tell stories about real people.

After graduating from Fairmont High School in Durbanville, he started to study Film and Media at the University of Cape Town and during this time, he did an internship at E-TV for 2 months. In 2005, as his final university project, he made a 10 minutes documentary about the history of the Cape Capoeira scene. In 2006, he got his Honors degree in Film Theory and Practice from UCT and also produced a film, as his final thesis, called Lost Prophets with his co-producer and collaborator Sean Drummond, talking about Prophets of the city which shows the history of personal stories of South Africa`s Hip Hop. The documentary was screened at various film festivals in South Africa.