Expect the unexpected with Robot’s Ayanda Duma, new work

Robot director Ayanda Duma has built a reputation for bringing the unexpected to a script. It’s what makes her work so distinctive. She blends genres, finds moments of humour inside serious stories and has an uncanny ability to elevate a script in ways that feel both surprising and completely natural. Her latest commercial for agency Meow Meow Woof and financial brand Mukuru is no exception. The next time you’re putting together a treatment list, throw Ayanda into the mix and see what happens. There’s a good chance she’ll show you something you didn’t know was hiding in your script.

Anna Nurse, Copywriter at Meow Meow Woof says, “When you shoot with Ayanda Duma, the work reflects the people it’s actually made for. Which shouldn’t be rare in South Africa, but is. Ayanda brings a rawness and authenticity to whatever she does. The world and people feel believable, and beautiful at the same time.”

Watching Ayanda talk about her latest commercial for Mukuru, a South African brand that offers users ways to send money to over 60 countries across the world, it becomes clear that the unexpected is exactly where she thrives. “For me, I look for the version of a script that feels most human, most surprising and ultimately most memorable. My hope is that after seeing my treatment, creatives will go, ‘How did we not see that?’ That’s what I enjoy, bringing the unexpected to a script,” she says.

“How do you tell a story about people building lives across borders without reducing them to a single experience? And how do you create momentum without rushing past the small moments that make people feel real? And how do you add humour to a story about perseverance?”

‘Mukuru’ by Ayanda Duma

“I love genre bending and genre blending. For me, that’s where the fun is,” says Ayanda. “I love where things intersect. I love the grey space. Why can’t us selling food feel like a club music video? It’s the fusion that excites me.” In Mukuru, genre bending is the reason the film feels so fresh. Doccie textures with polished cinematography, and music video energy drives a deeply human story. And somehow it all feels completely natural. And, as with much of her work, moments of humour inevitably find their way into the story. It’s something we’ve always loved about Ayanda – she is damn funny!

That playfulness is perhaps most evident in the characters she creates. Ayanda doesn’t underestimate her audience, and she never reduces her characters to stereotypes. From a mechanic who dreams of becoming a jazz pianist to a young female coder determined to find another way after being turned away by a bank, every character feels human and like someone you could meet tomorrow.

Ayanda’s treatment envisioned an ad that moved between South Africa, Zimbabwe and the UK, using different textures and formats to reflect lives lived across borders. When the production budget couldn’t stretch across three countries, she found another way. Ayanda directed the ad’s shoot with all the actors in South Africa, while Zimbabwean-born directing duo TwoFold supplied footage they had previously captured around Bulawayo and Harare. A filmmaker friend in Newcastle picked up a camera to capture her daily commute through London, and TwoFold also headed out across Joburg with a skeleton crew to gather the observational moments that helped complete Ayanda’s vision. Different formats, aspect ratios, film grain and doccie footage sit alongside her crafted cinematography, creating a visual language that feels authentic rather than overly polished, but most importantly, feels unmistakably like Ayanda.

It’s this level of thought that Robot Executive Producer Liam Johnson sees every time he works with Ayanda. “It’s an incredible experience working with Ayanda. But you got to keep up, have your wits about you, prepare. Because that’s what that infectious energy of hers brings. Meticulous attention to detail, a vast set of skills and plenty of vision. She fine tunes everything and gets the best out of her team, the talent and the script.”

It has to be said, it was also just a joy to catch up with Ayanda again. We’ve interviewed her over the years and watched her body of work grow, but more than being an exceptional talent, she’s one of those people, like Liam says, who leaves you with more energy than you arrived with. She’s funny, thoughtful, endlessly curious and, in an industry built on (way too) long days and tight deadlines, that counts for a lot.