Dr.Farasi

Dr. Vincenzo Cavallo, known as Dr. Faras in East Africa, is an award-winning director, producer and researcher working between Africa, Europe and Latin America. Italian by birth and Kenya-based for (...) nearly two decades, he is co-founder of Cultural Video Foundation, Cultural Video Production and the Nairobi BUS collective, and has made feature films, XR experiences, documentary series and more than fifty documentaries. His latest work, Ri-lancia Luigi Broglio (Re-Launching Luigi Broglio, 2025, 33'), is a 360° immersive theatrical experience and the sole recipient of the 75,000 euro grant of Biennale College Cinema - Immersive, 9th edition. Produced by Cultural Video Production with Silvia Gioiello and INVR.SPACE, it premiered at Venice Immersive during the 82nd Venice Film Festival and won Best 360° Experience at the European XR Awards (AIXR) in Brussels. It later had its Japanese premiere at the Kyoto Historica International Film Festival, where he held a masterclass for the Kyoto Filmmakers Lab, and was exhibited at M9 - Museo del '900 in Venice in 2026. The work revisits the story of the Italian engineer who launched his country into space in the 1960s from the first equatorial launch base, built on a sea platform off the Kenyan coast. His feature Bufis - Daydreamers, co-directed with Mahad Ahmed and co-produced with Unafilm with support from the World Cinema Fund and the Red Sea Film Fund, streams worldwide on Netflix; it won the VFF award at the Berlinale Co-Production Market in 2019. He was a Berlinale Talent in 2018 and 2019, representing Kenya. In 2020 he premiered African Space Makers at Venice XR, the first interactive XR series produced in Africa, which received the Lumiere Award for best direction, the XR Must Impact Award and a place among the three finalists of the VR NOW Award. Its rights were acquired by RAI-VR and it toured major Italian museums. He produced Almost Somali (STEPS, ARTE France), winner of Best Continental Short Doc and available on arte.tv within Generation Africa, and The Baobab Whisperer (Big World Cinema) for Al Jazeera's Africa Direct. His web series Connection House won best direction at Roma Web Fest 2016 and best comedy at Berlin Web Fest 2017; his first feature WAZI?FM received the Golden Dhow at the Zanzibar International Film Festival. His twelve-episode series on Afro-Colombian music, Pasos de Cumbia, won the CNTV Chile and RTVC Colombia co-production awards. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and New Technologies from IULM University, obtained in 2010 after working for UN/DESA, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford on the ERC project ConflictNet. He publishes on ICT for development and on XR and public space in Africa.