A practitioner’s instinct, a researcher’s discipline.
Thirty years of moving between newsrooms, parliaments, civil society, and the academy, in the company of a single question: how do democratic institutions communicate, listen, and account for themselves.
Martina Della Togna, MFA
I am a documentary filmmaker, strategic communications practitioner, and media studies scholar based in Cape Town. My work has moved between independent documentary filmmaking, public and parliamentary communication, civil society advisory, and scholarly research, with a sustained interest in how democratic institutions communicate, listen, and account for themselves.
I hold a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Television (Producing) from AFDA, the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, and I am completing doctoral research at Rhodes University under Professor Anthea Garman, examining how the South African Parliament’s public participation systems operated during the state capture period. The thesis is funded by the National Research Foundation and is expected to be conferred in late 2026.
Through RIA, the practice I have run since 2016, I work as advisor to postgraduate researchers, executives, and mature students returning to study, as an consultant to civil society organisations and democratic institutions, and as a researcher and producer on commissioned projects. Recent clients include the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Democracy Works Foundation, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, the Fort Calata Foundation, and the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature.
Earlier in my career I served as the South African Parliament’s first Multimedia Manager, establishing the institution’s multimedia unit, social platforms, and multimedia archive. I served twice as a Non-Executive Director of the Media Development and Diversity Agency, and community media has remained a sustained passion and research interest throughout.
Four threads through every brief.
Practitioner’s instinct, researcher’s discipline
Thirty years of producing and advising, paired with a doctoral training in how to ask the harder questions. Both, every time.
Long horizons over short answers
The work is built for the question you are still asking in five years. Quick wins are welcome, but rarely the point.
Listening before speaking
Every brief starts with what is already there. The strategy follows, shaped by what the institution, the team, or the learner is actually trying to say.
Bespoke, not packaged
Every engagement is designed for the people in the room and the question they bring.
Four chapters.
Chronological, earliest first. A summary of what the practice has been built on.
Independent documentary and community broadcasting
Early work in community radio at Bush Radio and television at CVET, followed by independent documentary production for the SABC. Producer on Community Eyes (1995) and the educational documentary series New Era, New Rights (1996/97), the SABC’s first educational documentary series produced with five first-time Black directors from Cape Flats townships.
Producer in the Ikon South Africa project, a South African and Swedish documentary collaboration that produced more than thirty short films across three SABC broadcast seasons. Selected films include Deafening Echoes (2003), Mr Devious: My Life (2004 to 2007), James Mange: The Man Who Shook Pretoria (2008), Biko’s Children (2009), and Forgotten Gold (2010), an international co-production with Belgium and the DRC that won Best Feature Documentary at the Italian Africa Film Festival.
Parliament of the Republic of South Africa
Master of Fine Arts conferred by AFDA in 2011. Appointed as the first Multimedia Productions Manager at the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, with responsibility for establishing the Parliamentary Multimedia Unit and managing a team of fourteen multimedia specialists.
Set up Parliament’s official social media platforms, managed the parliamentary website at 200,000 plus monthly hits, and led the multimedia component of the institution’s public participation programme. Member of the Non-Executive Board of the Media Development and Diversity Agency; producer of the MDDA commissioned research report on community television broadcasting (2013).
RIA, independent advisory and production practice
Founded RIA in 2016 as a boutique practice in strategic communications, content development, research, and film production. Clients to date include the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Democracy Works Foundation, the Fort Calata Foundation, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature, the African National Congress, and the United Nations Development Programme.
Lead Researcher and Convenor of the Communication chapter for both editions of the South Africa Covid-19 Country Report (2020 to 2025), a peer-reviewed national research output produced through the Presidency, DPME, GTAC, and the NRF. Head of National Communications for the African National Congress during the 2024 national elections and the establishment of the Government of National Unity.
Doctoral research, Rhodes University
PhD candidate at the School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, supervised by Professor Anthea Garman. Thesis: Public Participation and Organisational Listening in the South African Parliament. National Research Foundation funded. Conferral expected October 2026.
The thesis contributes an original theoretical framework for diagnosing how democratic institutions can themselves become sources of information disorder. Active publication trajectory in journals and a planned monograph.
Qualifications, service, languages.
Education
- Master of Fine Arts, Film and Television (Producing) AFDA: The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, 2011
- PhD candidate, Journalism and Media Studies Rhodes University, 2019 to 2026, supervisor Prof. Anthea Garman
Board service
- Non-Executive Director Media Development and Diversity Agency
Professional associations
- Member Documentary Filmmakers Association
- Member Institute of Directors South Africa
Research interests
- Institutional information integrity and democratic accountability
- Institutional listening and accountability
- Public participation frameworks and deliberative democracy
- Democratic regression, civic trust, and information disorder
- Decolonial approaches to institutional analysis
- Media diversity, viability, and policy
- Documentary film as research dissemination methodology
- Global South perspectives on democratic dysfunction
Languages
- English Fluent
- Italian Fluent
- Afrikaans Intermediate
- French Intermediate
Climate, wildlife and nature
A direction the practice is moving in deliberately. Documentary, communications, and research work that brings storytelling to bear on how human communities understand their place in living systems. Active rather than established, signalled here rather than overclaimed.
Long-standing collaborators, project-by-project partners.
Specialist work is brought in through associates whose practice complements the brief at hand. A core group has worked with me over many years; other collaborators are introduced on a project-by-project basis.
Specialist areas covered through the associate network include legal, media production, strategic communications, climate, wildlife and nature, and editorial and academic publishing.