South African filmmaker. Commited against apartheid.


David Pupkewitz has a long and successful history of independent film production under his UK based development, production and finance company Focus Films.

David Pupkewitz was born in 1951. He graduated with Bachelor of Business Science (Hons) in 1973, and was awarded an AE & CI Research Fellowship. In 1979 he graduated from University College London with a BA Philosophy (Hons). From 1982 - 1995 until Focus established itself as a feature film Production Company he was concurrently MD of a group of financial services companies.

His financial background enabled him to develop a wide range of international co-financing relationships and has been instrumental in opening up new sources of finance to the film industry.

He has occasionally spoken at seminars on development and finance for the NSCTP under the auspicious of the National Film School, London and at the Producers' association, PACT.

Since 1995 the company has concentrated on producing theatrical motion pictures. Films produced over the last 15 years range from action thrillers to romantic dramas, sci-fi/horror to black comedy.

By Stephen Schmidt
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