Biography
Maynard Kraak is a South African director and producer born in Cape Town, the youngest of four to Abraham and Elda Kraak. His high schools included Livingstone High School and he matriculated from Cape Tutorial College before enrolling at the University of Cape Town. After leaving his academic studies, Maynard first joined the South African Navy and then later on the South African Police where he was a detective in a high crime area of Cape Town, notorious for its violent street gangs.
After a couple of years in the Police, he returned to the University of Cape Town to study drama. After his first year Maynard realized a passion for directing and sought out a path towards a career in film and television. At first he went to America as a cultural exchange student, working at a ski resort, and while there applied to numerous media and film programs at various colleges. He was accepted to three of these. However, instead of attending one of those colleges, Maynard ended up in the United Kingdom, and enrolled at an eclectic film & television school in the north of England, ARTTS International.
Upon graduating with a diploma in directing and producing for the screen in 1999, Maynard returned to South Africa and immediately entered the local entertainment industry. Within four months he landed a trainee director role on the country's most popular television daily drama series, Generations, but not before he created, directed and produced his first professional work on stage. After six weeks as a trainee on Generations, Maynard was elevated to directing his own episodes, and this evolved into a five year stint as a staff director that included almost 300 episodes of the series. During this time, Maynard assisted his good friend and former house mate Akin Omotoso (director of the Disney backed film Rise) produce his first feature film, God is African. Maynard also directed a few short films and was afforded a sabbatical by his Generations producers, to direct another post-watershed drama series This Life, an adaptation of the original BBC cult hit drama series from the mid-nineties. In 2004, Maynard was head hunted to head up the directing team of new daily drama series, Scandal where he also performed the duties of the creative producer.
After a year getting this new show on its feet, Maynard emigrated to the United Kingdom, where he acquired citizenship and is thus a dual national. In this time he worked in the independent film sector, in particular development. In 2010, he returned to South Africa as Head of Development for Stark Films at their new studios in Johannesburg, commuting from London, whilst still living in the UK. He directed on the series Binneland, whilst setting up writing rooms for new series he had in development at Stark Studios. He went on to produce and direct some of these television series. After two years he stepped away to found West Five Films, a production company predominantly focused on developing and producing narrative feature films. In 2013, the company went into production with its first film directed and produced by Maynard, Vrou Soek Boer that was a big success in its theatrical release and even more so with its digital streaming/on demand release on Africa's DSTV satellite platform Box Office, eclipsing all other films on the platform at the time.
Next up, he produced another box office success, the feature film Knysna, directed by Andre Velts. This was backed up by back to back feature films Sonskyn Beperk and Finders Keepers in 2015. After living in Johannesburg from 2011 to 2015, Maynard relocated his young family to Cape Town. Since 2015, he has been traveling regularly to the US, until the Covid-19 lockdown placed restrictions on travel. However, he did return to the directing chair for the film The Last Victims that he also produced in 2017. This film had its world premiere at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, and also opened the Rapid Lion festival in Johannesburg. Unfortunately, due to the latter South African premiere, the film could not be included in competition at the Durban International Film Festival, but was included in the festival line up. The Last Victims went on to win a number of awards across numerous international film festivals. The film was picked up by Amazon Prime.
In 2018, Maynard mentored first time film female producer Razia Rawoot at Razia Bawa Productions, produce the feature film Bhai's Cafe. This film went on to close the Durban International Film Festival in 2019. It was picked up by the African streaming service ShowMax, and is available on that platform alongside Maynard's other productions Vrou Soek Boer, Knysna and Sonskyn Beperk. Maynard in the midst of a feature film SA/Canada co-production with White Bear Films from Winnipeg, directed by Jeremy Torrie, when the 2020 lockdown hit. The project had already started production in 2019 when the project was placed in hiatus while awaiting the finance agreement to be signed off, something that took ten months. So when its was scheduled to return to production in April 2020, it was a huge blow when the lockdown scuttled the project. The project was resurrected later in the year, only for one of the financiers to pull out in October 2020, on the same day the the completion bond was issued.
In 2021, Maynard had a very busy year. He partnered up with two of South Africa's premier comedians Start Taylor and Riyaad Moosa, to produce a sketch comedy series Comedy Mixtape that Maynard also directed. This was immediately followed up by a documentary that Maynard directed, and produced with American actress Briana Evigan. The documentary MoveMe South Africa won best documentary at a festival in Las Vegas. The latter part of 2021, Maynard mentored a second first time female producer on the feature film Skaapboer, where he also served as the production's Line Producer.
Maynard spent six months in 2022, as Lead Director on the series The Estate shooting in Johannesburg.
