Liyema is a South African filmmaker and AFDA graduate whose work explores the unspoken spaces between people with striking clarity and visual restraint.
His co-directed debut feature, Adam, premiered at the Johannesburg Film Festival 2025, earning nominations for Best Edited Film, Best Film, and Best African Film. The film reached #5 on Showmax’s Top 10 most-watched films in South Africa, establishing Liyema as a new voice in African cinema.
His storytelling roots go back to early childhood, shaped by monthly VHS tapes and a home full of quiet observation. Today, his approach combines aesthetic precision with emotional depth, creating worlds where memory collides with present tense.
Founder of New Bastions, Liyema is currently developing Lucky, a gothic, theatrical feature inspired by high school journals. Set in an elite South African boarding school where pristine traditions mask decay, the film follows a boy’s ruthless ascent to the position of headboy, during one pivotal weekend. With candlelit corridors and mud-soaked rugby fields, Lucky blends Spencer‘s charged intensity with Succession‘s dark wit to explore the performance of belonging and the savage games of institutional power.
Alongside Lucky, he is developing two smaller prestige projects: Where the Land Remembers and Baby!