Nicholas Calvin Mwakatobe
filmmaker / photographer / creative director
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Shaped by its own set of constraints, a project offers a clear framework for getting things done. Sometimes there’s a strict deadline; other times, a series of goals. Perhaps it involves organizing an event or creating a video that lets those who couldn’t be there share in the experience.
In this section, I present a selection of the many projects I have initiated, led, and contributed to.
As a filmmaker, the pinnacle of achievement is seeing a story I’ve helped shape unfold on the screen—be it documentary or fiction, long or short. Each film is a collective effort, bringing many people together to capture something meaningful.
Here, you’ll find films I’ve directed, shot, or colored, often alongside talented collaborators in my local film community. Watching these works resonate with an audience is always the greatest reward.
Collaborations
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When the essence of your work involves telling people’s stories, it goes without saying that collaboration is often key. Some projects I take part in are conceived from the very start as joint efforts with fellow artists, friends, or institutions. This collective approach lends each endeavor a unique character, centered on bringing out the best in everyone involved. The end result is always greater than what any of us could have achieved alone.
Residencies
and Talks
A great deal of growth happens when you have the time, space, and resources to focus on what excities you. Thanks to a number of artist residencies, fellowships, talks, and conversations I’ve been part of over the years, my journey has been as much about reflection and contemplation as it has been about creation and bringing projects to life.
In this section, I share some of the key residencies and fellowships I’ve had the privilege to experience.
Commissions
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I’ve always seen commissions as opportunities to push my work further, offering the space and resources to tackle both technical and thematic challenges I couldn’t otherwise approach.
In this section, you’ll find commissioned pieces that significantly influenced my development and the direction of my storytelling.
Photography
Photography has long been at the heart of my practice, a way to connect with people through creating images together. Many of my projects ultimately return to the image – whether captured through a camera lens or the mental images we form of our world.
This obsession with images led me to found PichaTime – "picha" being the Swahili word for "image" – an initiative dedicated to exploring stories and images beyond the camera lens.
Here, I present a diverse collection of images capturing moments from my journey over the years.
Biography
Nicholas Calvin Mwakatobe is a filmmaker, photographer, and the creative director of PichaTime. He is interested in stories as tools for representing and conceptualizing the body—its spatial and temporal placement—within our multi-species world; how we interact with stories, histories, geography, technologies in claiming and shaping our space in the world.
He was a British Library Resonations artist-in-residence (2023), a Video Consortium Fellow (2023), and a recipient of both the Civitella Ranieri Visual Arts Fellowship in Italy (2019) and the Apex Art Visual Art Fellowship in New York (2019). In 2020, he participated in The New York Times Portfolio Review.
Recently, Mwakatobe created video work for the “Histories of Tanzania” exhibition—a collaboration between the Humboldt Forum and the National Museum of Tanzania—currently on view at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
From 2018 to 2022, he co-curated the performative installation project Vinyago: Dance Beyond Colonial Biography, which premiered at the Humboldt Forum in December 2022. Drawing on the East African mask collection of the Ethnological Museum Berlin, this project examined the implications of African heritage objects being displaced in European museums.
In 2018, Mwakatobe founded PichaTime (“picha” is Swahili for “image”), a platform aimed at encouraging critical reflection on the convergence of stories, histories, and creative expressions. Through PichaTime, he explores how these narratives shape our identities and our relationships to one another and to the world.
His work has been exhibited and screened at Nafasi Art Space, the National Museum of Tanzania, Alliance Française Dar es Salaam, and the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, as well as in Hamburg, Munich, Basel, and New York. He has collaborated on projects for UNICEF, the European Union, Walt Disney and National Geographic’s “Team Sayari” children’s program, the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Dar es Salaam’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts, M4ID for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and for local schools and festivals including Muda Africa, Sauti za Busara, and the Dhow Countries Music Academy.
In addition to his own documentary films (Kama Wewe (2017), Crocodile in My Blood (2018)), he has contributed to numerous documentaries, features, and shorts in various capacities—such as director of photography, cinematographer, and colorist. Highlights include serving as cinematographer for the documentary Wahenga (2018), as colorist for the feature film T-Junction (2017), and as cinematographer for the Ndio Ukubwa film anthology (2021). His collaboration with poet Jennifer Scappettone, the short film “Populist Pastoral (In Smoke),” was published in OIKOST journal in 2021.
Mwakatobe lives and works in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he is an active participant in the local art and film community. He is involved with the Nafasi Film Club and regularly contributes to the Nafasi Curatorial Academy as a facilitator and guest artist, leading classes and workshop.