Simon Wood

Simon Wood is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker based in Cape Town, South Africa. His films have been screened at major festivals worldwide, winning awards across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. In 2024, Wood is undertaking a fellowship at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, which brings together storytellers, technologists, and scholars to advance the new arts of documentary. His previous film, “Container,” a VR180 collaboration with Indian artist Meghna Singh, screened at the 78th Venice International Film Festival and Tribeca 2022 and became the first VR film to be screened at the Nobel Prize Giving Week. In 2020, his film “Scenes from a Dry City” won the World Press Photo ‘Online Film of the Year’ and earned an Emmy nomination. With a filmography that includes “Forerunners,” “The Silent Form,” and “Orbis,” Wood consistently challenges the conventional boundaries of documentary filmmaking. His current projects, developed at MIT, include “The Beautiful Ones Will Be Born,” an interactive installation utilising smart fabrics to present images of protest and resistance in sculptural form, and “The Four Floors of Faneuil Hall: Becoming American,” a quadriptych project exploring historical erasure and American identity.