Director S returns to the Eastern Cape with a powerful new TV Series.
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
Long before film sets, international productions and award stages, Siya Sityana, known in the industry as Director S, was simply a young boy in the valleys of the Eastern Cape, sitting beside his grandmother listening to radio dramas. Those evenings were filled with imagination, where voices on the radio painted entire worlds in the mind. Inspired by those moments, Sityana and his childhood friends began creating their own stories, recording homemade plays on cassette tapes and sharing them with their community. What started as playful storytelling would quietly grow into the foundation of a remarkable directing career.
For Sityana, storytelling began long before cameras, film sets and international recognition entered his life. It began with play, curiosity and community.
“My journey started when I was young, growing up in the valleys of the Eastern Cape,” he recalls. “We grew up listening to radio dramas with my grandmother, and my childhood friends and I would create our own plays.”
Those childhood performances were more than games. Armed with cassette tape recorders, Sityana and his friends would record their homemade dramas and play them back to people in their community, waiting eagerly to see how the stories would be received.
“We would play them back to the community to see if they were into it,” he says with a smile. “In a way, that was my first audience.”
His love for storytelling only deepened through high school, where writing journals and essays became another creative outlet. Standing in front of his classmates to present his ideas sparked something deeper, a realisation that stories had the power to move people.
Eventually, that passion led him beyond the Eastern Cape. Sityana moved to Cape Town to pursue tertiary studies, majoring in scriptwriting before later fusing that discipline with directing.
His first professional breakthrough came with the 46664 Campaign television advert for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, a project that placed him at the intersection of creativity and history. Soon after, he stepped into television production, working on the show Let’s Fix It on e.tv.
From there, the path forward expanded rapidly. “My international work was a blessing in disguise for my career,” Sityana reflects.
One of those pivotal moments came when he worked alongside Denzel Washington on the Hollywood film Safe House as an assistant director. The experience opened new doors and broadened his understanding of filmmaking on a global stage.
Not long after, Sityana directed his first internationally acclaimed film, The Cursed Ones, shot in Ghana, a project that went on to win an African Academy Award and further cement his place as a filmmaker to watch.
Between films and television work, his creative reach expanded into music videos, where he collaborated with major artists including Heavy K, Fuse ODG, Tinie Tempah, and the late AKA.
Yet among his many career highlights, one achievement stands above the rest: winning the International Photography Award, becoming the first South African to receive the honour.
“That was a pinnacle moment,” he says. “It was also the first time a creative director had ever been nominated on that platform. For me, it validated the work I do and confirmed that audiences were connecting with my storytelling.”
Despite the global recognition, Sityana remains deeply rooted in the philosophy that drives his work.
“I’m a story-first, character-driven director,” he explains. “I focus on authentic human emotion over spectacle. Even in high-stakes action, the characters must feel real, flawed and relatable.”
This approach defines the atmosphere on his sets. He leads with clarity and collaboration, ensuring that every crew member understands the intention behind each scene.
“I don’t just give instructions,” he says. “I communicate purpose. When everyone understands the ‘why’, the story becomes stronger.”
Today, Sityana is channelling that vision into his latest project, a new action crime drama series titled 360 Degrees South. A series he both wrote and now directing, which took him four years to complete.
Set between Gqeberha and East London, the series follows an investigative journalist who becomes entangled in the dangerous world of organised crime, eventually forming an uneasy alliance with a crime intelligence detective.
“At its core, the story isn’t just about crime,” Sityana explains. “It’s about truth, power, and the personal cost of seeking justice in a broken system.”
Shot in real locations across the Eastern Cape, the series aims to deliver a raw and cinematic portrayal of South African realities.
For Director S, storytelling remains an ever-evolving journey. “What keeps me inspired is knowing that storytelling is never finished,” he reflects. “Each project is a chance to challenge perspectives and tell the stories that haven’t yet been fully heard.”
And if his journey from cassette tape dramas in the valleys of the Eastern Cape to international film sets has proven anything, it is that powerful stories often begin in the most humble places, long before the world is watching.
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