Field Navigation Lab
13 - 28 FEBRUARY 2025 | Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa
Photograph by Samson Moyo
Meet the FIELD GUIDE
// Massimo Rebuzzi, South Africa
African Bush Company
Born in South Africa, Massimo Rebuzzi wanted to be a Field Guide from the age of six. His career as a field guide started straight out of school in 2003 in KwaZulu-Natal. He has spent the last 17 years guiding and training in the safari industry—ranging from private five-star lodges to wilderness camps—across Southern Africa, including the Waterberg area in Limpopo, Kruger National Park, Namibia, and Botswana. After extensive experience in guiding, lodge management, and the safari industry, he began training future field guides in Botswana, Kruger National Park, and KwaZulu-Natal, where his passion for training guides and conservationists truly grew. His passion for nature and walking in wilderness areas motivates him to share his knowledge and enthusiasm with others, facilitating their reconnection to nature.
His professional qualifications and titles include Professional Trails Guide, SKS Birding, ETDP & FGASA Assessor and Trails Guide Mentor, CyberTracker Qualified Professional Tracker and Track and Sign Specialist, PFTC Range Officer, FGASA Safari Guide of the Year 2016 Competitor (Winner categories: Shooting and Tracking), PFTC Firearms Assessor.
Meet the FELLOWS
// LErato Marcia, South Africa
Lerato Marcia is a multimedia creative based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She specialises in cinematography, photography, video editing, creative and corporate writing, music composition, voice artistry, digital brand strategy, data analytics, and content curation. Her passion extends beyond the arts, encompassing dedicated nature conservationism, aspirations in farming, and advocacy for human rights, particularly for marginalised groups such as women, children, and the LGBTIQI+ community. A critical thinker and storyteller, she sees her creative talents as tools to interpret a world that often defies understanding. She thrives both as a hardworking team player and as an independent worker. Her work serves as a canvas for audio-visual artistry while deliberately probing and challenging social issues, aiming to ignite communal dialogue and foster positive global change. Lerato joined the NEWF community as a 2024 Her Lens Cinematography fellow.
// Luyanda Shabala, South Africa
Luyanda Shabalala is a wildlife cinematographer, film director, musician, sound mixer and photographer based in South Africa. He is extremely passionate about wildlife, sound and telling stories. He has been in the industry for over 5 years and is on a journey to share stories on the beauty and importance of the wildlife world and the people in those natural spaces. Shabalala has had the opportunity to produce films in South Africa, namely as part of the Camera crew on PBS Nature’s ‘The Ocean’s Greatest Feast’, short documentary films in Austria and Botswana, and video contributions to Mongabay. Shabalala is a 2022 Jackson Wild Media Lab fellow, as well as a 2022 African Science Film Fellowship fellow. During the ASFF program, he spent time in the biodiversity-rich Gorongosa National Park documenting the work of a local scientist Jonatá Caminho. He produced a short biographical documentary exploring the impact of both fire and large herbivores on the distribution and behaviours of savannah birds in the park.
// Nathan Rice, South Africa
Nathan Rice is a filmmaker from KwaZulu-Natal who has passionately been making films since the age of 12. Nathan achieved a BA in Film Directing and Screenwriting from AFDA Durban in 2015 where his graduation film, Homeless was shortlisted for the Student Academy Awards. Nathan has gone on to work on multiple fiction and environmental films, achieving the NEWF Africa rising star award in 2021. He has been trained on Red cameras and has worked as a cinematographer filming for the National Geographic Society, SABC and other independent productions, including the award winning ‘Ulwandle Lushile’ and NEWF’s first feature-length film (currently in production), ‘Indoni Yamanzi’.
// Precious Ashunganya, Cameroon
Director, writer, and producer Ashunganya Nchafac Nkemlemo Precious was born in Mmockmbie village in Cameroon. Her journey in film started in 2021 in her room, using low-budget lights, a phone and her creativity to create single-character short movies. She belongs to Influens Arts, a film training program created by the Filmmaker Arnurin Nwunembom, where she produced and directed the short film ‘Red Microphone’. At Influens Arts, she has had the opportunity to participate in the Sister Speak digital literacy competition February edition where the Influens Arts team submitted the short movie ‘Killer Blog’ which she directed. The movie won the second position with over a thousand engagements on Facebook. At the April edition of the same competition, she emerged winner submitting the monologue entitled ‘Wrong Story’. In 2023, she won a production grant from NEWF (Nature Environment Wildlife Filmmakers) at The Cameroon International Film Festival CAMIFF to produce a Wildlife Documentary in Cameroon. Ocean Stories, is a documentary series she produced for YouTube with support from NEWF, aimed at stimulating local curiosity about the ocean through the lens of people close to it. As a producer, she is motivated to make her movies accessible for every individual, especially those who cannot afford streaming platforms like Netflix and similar platforms which is why exploring YouTube’s reach is essential to her production strategy. Ashunganya is currently the Storytelling Lead for AMMCO.
// Samson Moyo, Zambia
Samson Moyo is a wildlife filmmaker and producer from Zambia who specialises in short documentaries. Having developed an interest in wildlife filmmaking and nature, he pursued studies in Digital Film Production to gain a more in-depth understanding of videography. He has since worked on a number of shoots with different production companies including the BBC, National Geographic, Walt Disney, Natural History New Zealand, Iniosante, and Wildstar. When he is not on assignment for productions, he runs his own production company - Mosam Media - where his projects centre around producing his own film projects. Samson pitched and produced his first deeply impactful short documentary film, ‘Reformed’ through Mosam Media with the support of Nature Environment Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF), the National Geographic Society and the KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission. ‘Reformed,’ highlights the story of Chilekwa Kapanda, a poacher-turned-scout whose story has inspired local poachers to follow suit and become passionate about conservation. It has received global recognition and was nominated for the Jackson Wild Media Awards under the Global Voices category, screening at the JWMA with a live performance by the NEWF Compose Yourself fellows, screening at the BBC Natural History Unit, and at the 2023 National Geographic Storytellers Summit with another live performance by the NEWF compose yourself fellows. The film received air time at the South African Broadcasting Cooperation 3 (SABC 3) under 50|50 community TV program. Samson continues his work advocating for wildlife through storytelling.
// Victoria Wanjohi, Kenya
Victoria Wanjohi is a wildlife conservation scientist and conservation writer, photographer and filmmaker from Nairobi, Kenya. With a background in wildlife management and conservation and over ten years in the conservation sector, she is driven by an appreciation for nature and a desire to educate and inspire African youth on environmental conservation, climate action, and the harmonious coexistence of people with nature. She is the visionary behind the acclaimed and award-winning platform Nyika Silika and the founder of Biophilic Conversations where she is building a community that can better understand their own conservation and local community stories and also advocate for holding the government accountable to act on their duty by implementing efficient policies. She seeks to bring core conservation issues to the forefront by not only raising awareness through storytelling but also empowering others to commit to taking action.
