Greg Marinovich biography and achievements

Greg Marinovich, born in South Africa in 1962, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and is co-author of The Bang Bang Club, a non-fiction book on South Africa’s transition to democracy.

He has spent 18 years doing conflict, documentary and news photography around the globe.  His photographs have appeared in top international publications such as Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian of London, among others. He is chair of the World Press master Class nominating committee for Africa, and was a World Press Photo judge in 1994, as well as convenor of the FujiFilm awards in 2000.
April 1996 – Aug 1997: Chief Photographer, The Associated Press, Israel/Palestine.

1993 – 1996: Freelance photographer, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, the Associated Press. Worked in Angola, Bosnia, Chechnya, India, Mozambique, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa, Zaire.
1990 – 1992: Freelance photographer with the Associated Press, Sygma, The European, South African publications. Editor-at-Large and columnist at Living Africa, a general interest and lifestyles magazine. Worked in Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia, South Africa, Yugoslavia.
1988 – 1990: Freelance photographer and writer specializing in social documentary and anthropology. Part-time copy editor at South African financial magazine.

Currently:

Photographing, making films and writing as a freelancer. Three book projects underway.  Recently finished as Editor-in-Chief of the World Press Photo and Lokaalmundial’s 2010 project, mentoring and training journalists, writers, photographers, radio journalists and multi-media practitioners from across Africa. Amazing project.

Exhibitions:

• ‘Prospects of Babel’ 2008, Bell Roberts Gallery, Cape Town
• ‘Almost Seen’ 2004 (Ghent, Belgium & Johannesburg)
• ‘The Conquered Land’ 2002 (Johannesburg)
• ‘AIDS’  2000  (Johannesburg)
• ‘blank___Architecture, apartheid and after’ (1999 Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Berlin 2000; Johannesburg 2000/20001)
• ‘Croatia’ 1993  (Johannesburg)
• ‘Bosnia & Croatia’  1993  (United Nations New York)
• ‘Somalia’ 1992  (Johannesburg)

Books:

• ‘Prospects of Babel’ 2008, edited a photographic book, with texts, on the DRC.
• ‘The Bang-Bang Club’ (with Joao Silva). Heinneman UK, 2000; Basic Books USA 2000, Grijalbo Spain 2001.
• ‘A Man’s Journey to Simple Abundance’ (a collection of essays). Scribner USA, 2000.
• ‘Prospects of Babel – new imagery from the Congo. 2008

Films:

Crime Special 1995
Produced a 5 minute insert on crime and community-based crime fighters fighting crime in Soweto. (CNN) Shembe 1998
Co-produced a 24 minute documentary on the staunchly traditionalist Zulu Nazareth Baptist Church in KwaZulu-Natal. (SABC 2) Ten Days in Afghanistan 1999
Produced and shot a 24 minute documentary/diary on the Afghans who are fighting against the Taliban.  Exclusive interview with the famous commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, among the last before his death. (e.tv) The Way of The Forefathers 2000
Produced, wrote and shot a 24 minute documentary about how anti-apartheid APLA guerillas infiltrated traditional BaSotho initiation schools in the struggle for freedom in South Africa. A remarkable tale of revolution, scientific socialism, war and magic. (SABC 2) Village of the Spirits 2001
Directed, & shot a 24 minute documentary (co-produced by Leonie Marinovich) on the demise of culture and traditional religion in Venda, and how others are struggling to revive the Venda ways. (SABC 2) Looking for Luck 2002
Directed, & shot a 24 minute documentary (co-produced by Leonie Marinovich) on one man’s search for good luck. Aphonso’s journey takes us through three religions and several cultures in South Africa and Mozambique. (SABC 2) The Lord’s Children 2004
Directed, & shot a 24 minute documentary (with Leonie Marinovich) on children in northern Uganda who have managed to escape brutal abduction by The Lord’s Resistance Army. The story is how the children – most forced to commit murder and torture – struggle to fit back into the very communities they terrorized. (SABC 2) small boys, big guns 2004
Directed a 24 minute documentary (shot by Leonie Marinovich) how the rebel child soldiers and their village militia opponents view their role in Sierra Leone’s shocking civil war. The third aspect of the film are the child victims who have had their hands amputated, and how they now cope. (SABC 2) Conversations with Goldblatt 2005
48′ minute documentary on South Africa’s most famous and internationally renowned photographer, David Goldblatt, as he embarks on a photographic journey across the South African hinterland. Goldblatt, 72 years old, was the first photographer to have an individual show at the Museum of Modern Art MOMA. (SABC 2) Njengue, Spirit of the Forest 2005
Directed and shot a 24 minute documentary on the Baka Pygmies of the Cameroon rain forests. The loss of the forest through logging directly affects the Baka belief system as there are scared places within the jungle where the forest Spriti Ndjenge lives. Can the Baka culture and religion survive the wholesale destruction of the forest? (SABC 2) Dancers of God 2005
Directed and shot a 24 minute documentary on the BaTwa Pygmies of Uganda. Having been forced to give way to wildlife conservationists, the Twa are now primarily beggars living on the margins of urban and village society.  The Twa balance between old and new as church groups seem to offer their only material salvation, but they must forego their forest religion. (SABC 2)