Ian Gabriel's background in drama can be traced to his work at Dorkay House,

Johannesburg’s famous multi-racial theatre venue in the 1970’s and 1980’s where he

worked with many of South Africa’s legendary jazz and theatre greats.

 

He is a recipient of the Human Rights Award at the 57th Locarno International Film

Festival and is a Golden Leopard Nominee and winner of the Locarno Youth Jury

Best Film Award and the 2004 Best South African Film and Best African Film Awards

for his debut feature film Forgiveness.

 

 

Ian’s second film, Four Corners, is structured around shifting notions of family,

fatherhood and the gangs as a young boy comes of age in tough circumstances in

the special world of the Cape Flats.

 

 

Four Corners, completed in October 2013, with a scheduled release date of January

2013, is South Africa’s Official Submission for Foreign Film at the 86th Academy Awards.

 

 

Four Corners is the first film to be told in a blend of Sabela (the secret language of the Number Gangs) Tsotsi taal, Cape Afrikaans dialect and English.

 

 

Ian Gabriel is currently in development on the Robert Kennedy assassination thriller Concealment, written by screenwriter Terence Hammond, and Bush Babylon, a five season period TV series, conceptualized by Ian, and co-developed by Louverture Films’ Jocelyn Barnes and Danny Glover.

 

 

Ian is known throughout the world as one of South Africa’s leading Commercials Directors with representation in the USA, and the UK, while working out of his own production company Giant Films, in South Africa.

 

 

Ian is co-author of Forgiveness: A Study Guide published by Oxford University Press. The book introduces South African senior school students to the study of film and conflict resolution. His work has featured in programs focusing on conflict drama and reconciliation at festivals in Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Rio, Teheran, London and New York and at Cambridge and Princeton Universities.

 

Ian Gabriel is a mixed race South African of Indian descent.  He has four children. He is a member in good standing of the Director’s Guild of America.

 

 

Filmography:

Forgiveness (2004)
Four Corners (2013)