Mvelisi Mvandaba is a Casting Director who has taken South African casting by storm. As a trained actor and former producer, in 2019 he combined his love for talent and business acumen to open Monate Casting Directors, South Africa's first 100% black run casting studio. Since then, he has cast various projects for the local and international markets, seeing thousands of talent to find the right one for each project.

He has worked with some of the biggest networks and channels across the globe, including Netflix, NBCUniversal, DreamWorks Animation and a whole lot more. His passion, however, lies in independent scripts and working with young directors to bring their vision to life.

Mvelisi believes in equal opportunity casting and will challenge gender and racial norms that are typically assigned to characters. This pushes directors to think openly about their project, without tunneling their vision, all in the effort to truly find the best talent for any given role.

His tailor made approach is what sets him apart from the casting scene in South Africa - he truly believes each project should be looked at as an individual entity so as to avoid repetitive and biased casting practices.