Biography

I was born in Durban, South Africa where I spent my formative years. At a young age I could not play any form of contact sport due to a scoliosis and instead developed a deep and abiding passion for film and literature, but the lure of cinema was paramount.

I spent much of my youth watching some of the most impressionable films of the 1980’s like The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Octopussy and A View to a Kill.

In the early 1990’s I completed my Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Drama at the University of Natal, Durban (Now known a UKZN) in South Africa. After travelling for two months to Europe and America, I returned to Durban to do my Honours Degree in English Literature in 1994 at the the University of Natal, Durban (Now known a UKZN). Fortunately, I swopped a course on 19th century Realist literature for one on film analysis where I studied such classics as Psycho, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Citizen Kane.

After spending a year in Johannesburg where I completed a scriptwriting course for Television Drama at the SABC, I returned to Durban and did my Coursework Masters Degree in Media Studies at the Centre for Culture and Media Studies at the same University.

Part of my Coursework was a research article which I did on the significance of the Italian Neo-Realist film The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio di Sica in Robert Altman’s film The Player.

As part of the same Degree I also took a course in Visual Anthropology and studied the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord.

After completing University I spent two and half years living in London gaining much needed work experience including a stint at the newly formed BBC News, a 24 Hour news Channel. Between 1997 and 1999 during my stay in London, I traveled extensively around Europe including  fantastic destinations like Barcelona, Madrid, Prague, Budapest, Paris and Edinburgh.

I have also traveled extensively throughout North America visiting such US cities as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, New Orleans and Boston. When I was young, I was taken on a trip to England, America, Canada and Brazil which cultivated my sense of adventure and desire for traveling.

I have since lived for a brief time below the Mason-Dixon line in Charlotte, North Carolina in the USA. Since being back in South Africa I have lived in Port Edward down on the KwaZulu-Natal Lower South Coast and am now based back in my hometown of Durban, where I have lived since 2013.

I regard myself as a freelance journalist, specializing mainly in film journalism and criticism and the odd bout of travel writing. Besides film, I love traveling, fashion, reading good books, visiting art galleries and listening to classical music.

Follow me on Twitter for my incisive comments on Film and occasionally Television: @SouthboyD – https://twitter.com/SouthboyD 

David R. Walker