Bongani

I’ve been quietly becoming a tennis coach for a while now. Six years ago I picked up a racket for the first time in almost 20 years since high school! It pulled me under like cinema did, like music did, like every obsession I’ve ever loved. I missed it. Wasn’t quite like riding a bicycle, but I went from beginner/intermediate to USTA 4.5 in three years — which means less than it sounds and more than it looks. What I really learned was how to see the game and be in my body. Now I’m PTR certified. Fully insured. Real coach, not your buddy with a bucket of balls. (Although I will also be your buddy with a bucket of balls.) What I bring to the court is everything else I am: A filmmaker who watches footage like it’s poetry. An autistic brain that catalogs patterns, details, and systems. An ADHD nervous system that thinks through movement and flows and invents. A frequency and music obsessive who hears the rhythm of your stroke before he sees it. I teach intuitive first, technical second. Mindfulness, joy, somatic feel — all in. I’ll spot the ONE thing (maybe two) holding your game back, and I’ll get you up to speed faster than you think. Beginners are my favorite. There is something tender about learning a new movement language as an adult, and I want to be the coach who makes that feel safe and fun rather than corrective. If you’re “uncoachable,” “too in your head,” or “just not athletic” — that’s usually code for no one has explained this to your nervous system yet. Come hit. Let’s name what’s actually going on. If you’re stuck on a plateau, I see you. Let’s name the pattern. If you just want a reflective coach who’ll watch your footage with you and tell you what you can’t see — I’m your person. Filmmaking is still home. This is also home now. Both/and. LA-based. In person or video. DMs are open. Call me obsessed. Or call me COACH 😂🎾 P.S. The song choice is completely ridiculous, but I love the Creed movies and worked with @_joeshirley_ on a short called Space Flower by @pam_pam_pam_ long time ago. He killed this soundtrack. Also met @ludwiggoransson at @sinnersmovie screening 🙇🏾‍�

Hola amigos 👋🏾 — I am Autistic and ADHD = AuDHD. Neurodivergent/diverse AF! Late diagnosed adult: July 2024 with ADHD and started therapy and meds and this was revelatory. Then Autism/ASD diagnosis August 2025 which has been exponentially more transformative and enlightening ✨ I know there are millions of undiagnosed neurospicy folks out there. If you suspect you might be too, then let’s talk about it. Or if you just have questions or are curious about yourself or people in your life. Also, if you’re in my circle, we’ve been friends a long time, or we click, or you’ve sustained a creative career for decades and couldn’t imagine anything else, and the world and the way it works have always seemed weird to you… I’ve got news for you… just really high probability 😅 P.S. Tennis is my mindful embodied practice that regulates, helps me process, challenges me, calms me, strengthens, grounds, helps activate, settle, and integrate my mind, emotions, body, and spirit - besides the neurochemical and physiological cascade of goodness it releases. Super helpful for my neurospiciness. Come play with me! #tennis #autism #adhd #audhd #latediagnosedautistic #autistic #embodimentpractice #meditation #mindfulness #neurodivergence #neurospicy

Isildur the Firestarter 🔥 ... I've loved Lord of the Rings since the books! and I’m always trying to think of ways to incorporate movie, quotes and lines into music. This was an idea and performance straight out of my head. Whatchu think? Hopefully, this doesn't get copyright dinged 🤞🏾 P.S. people always ask me about the sweater.: it's the band @cureforparanoia #dj #improvisation #lotr #elrond #isildur #prodigy #mashup #lotr #pioneerddj400 #djaypro #bedroomdj

Echolalia. Most people hear the word and think “echo what now?!” “speech delay” or “symptom.” I experience it as phonetic play — half nervous-system regulation, half creative exploration. Today’s loop: “Helm Hammerhand.” I drove past the Hammer Museum the other day, saw the name “Armand Hammer” and my brain heard hammer, and pulled up the Lord of the Rings animated film. Now I’ll spend the next few days saying it 50+ times in different voices — narrator, commanding, scared, confident — until my brain is satisfied. The Wu-Tang “Shaolin shadowboxing” sample at the start of Protect Ya Neck is a permanent one. Has been for years. Researchers call this “gestalt language processing” — taking whole chunks of language as units rather than building from individual words. About 70% of late-identified autistic adults report some form of this. For AuDHD brains it often shows up as repetitive phonetic exploration that looks like stimming but is actually doing several things at once: regulating the nervous system, encoding rhythm and prosody, rehearsing emotional registers, and (for me) feeding directly into how I make music, write, and film. I’m sharing more of the lived texture of this — not just the philosophy and the research, but the actual weirdness of having an autistic + ADHD brain. The talking to myself. The voices. The loops. Some of it will look strange. Some of it will feel like coming home. If you do this too: hi. You’re not broken. You’re a frequency instrument. #echolalia #actuallyautistic #audhd #adhd #autism

Laryngitis week. Last week. No singing. No humming. No narrating my own kitchen as I make coffee. No rehearsing imagined arguments with people who don’t exist. Quiet inside the apartment. Loud inside my head. Vygotsky 1934: children externalize speech, then around age 7 it folds inward into inner speech. Silent verbal thinking. That’s the standard model. What the textbooks don’t say loudly enough: for a lot of neurodivergent folks — autistic, ADHD, both, other— that internalization is partial, delayed, or just doesn’t fully happen. So we keep talking. Out loud. To ourselves. To the wall. To the imagined version of someone who said one wrong thing in 2014. It’s not weird. It’s another layer of processing. Your voice in the air lands differently than the thought in your skull. (Russell Barkley has built half his ADHD theory on exactly this — delayed internalization of self-directed speech.) ADHD: divergent thoughts exploding outward. Autism: needing to externalize to organize the parallel processing. Run them together and you get someone who hums while he cooks, narrates while he drives, sings under his breath in line at Trader Joe’s, and rehearses Monday’s tennis match on Saturday morning. When I lost my voice, I lost my whole regulation system. Vagal tone runs through the vocal folds — humming and singing literally calms the nervous system. Polyvagal theory backs it. So last week wasn’t just quiet. It was unregulated. I’m in the choir. Who else? 🎙️ #AuDHD #PrivateSpeech #actuallyautistic #autism #neurodiversity

Sungura music is the greatest! ✨ While I have you: be kind to yourself, be gentle, be patient, be compassionate, and generous with your love for yourself. Maybe I post, maybe I don’t, but you can expect to find more of my music obsessions, dance breaks, neurodivergent thoughts and escapades, tennis and more tennis, maybe some new things. Random is the name of the game. Go be awesome! Bye ✌🏾❤️ #audhd #actuallyautistic #sungura #autism #zimbabwe

Black History Month asks us to remember—and to imagine. Bongani Mlambo (@bongaj ) (Associate Member) ⁣ ⁣ To remember the ancestors and elders who made paths where none existed. To imagine futures that haven’t been permitted yet.⁣ ⁣ I’m a cinematographer, originally from Harare, Zimbabwe. When I was young, I didn’t know this job existed. Film wasn’t a path anyone showed me. The industry I work in now & the projects I’ve had the pleasure to contribute to—I couldn’t have pictured it.⁣ ⁣ My parents worked hard to give us a good life & education, then let us be and explore. My uncle opened a door to America. Community college, then UT Arlington, years of assisting, learning, experimenting with friends. By 2016, I was behind the camera as a DP.⁣ ⁣ What I’ve learned about camera operating: it’s embodied. Beyond technique lies presence—a way of being with performers, with story, with your own body in space. My dance background, my tennis practice, my ability to focus deeply—these shape my operating as much as any craft.⁣ ⁣ I don’t know another Black Zimbabwean cinematographer working in the American film industry. That’s not a boast. It’s a reflection on access—on who gets to dream these dreams, and who doesn’t yet.⁣ ⁣ That’s why I volunteer with SOC and am a member. Why mentorship matters. Why I believe we have to be there for each other.⁣ ⁣ I want to teach film back home. Workshops in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa. Bridges between here and there.⁣ ⁣ Black history is still being written. By all of us. Every frame.⁣ ⁣ Photos:⁣ ⁣ 1. Harare, Zimbabwe. Me.⁣ ⁣ 2. WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE @wereallgonnadiemovie . Dir: @fwong @mattlarnold - currently filming @nailhousemovie ⁣ ⁣ 3. THE HAIR TALES . Operators: @cinementine @alexxissjackson.dop @badrahaidra @mofongocam ⁣ ⁣ 4. ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW. starring @karengillan @dastmalchian . Dir: Collin Schiffli @schifflifilms ⁣ ⁣ 5. Black Belts “BLACK BELTS – Disney Launchpad. Dir: Spencer Glover @spenceglover.mov ⁣ ⁣ 6. WAFFLES and MOCHI: Holiday Feast . Operators: @hirof1989 @badrahaidra @_mkross . Creators: @jeremykonner @erikathormahlen ⁣ ⁣ —Presented by the Inclusion Committee—⁣ ⁣ #SocietyofCameraOperator #BlackHistoryMonth

Driving back from tennis, my meditation and regulation, in Santa Monica today, I saw middle and/or high school students marching along the sidewalk. Signs reading “Melt ICE” and “ICE Out.” Kids. Protesting fascism. On a school day. And playing in the car my current on repeat (300+ times by now 😅 blame Autism/ADHD) - “Chikopokopo” by Alick Macheso. There’s a verse that breaks me every time: “Kana wafunga mugodhi, chera kusvika wabata mvura” “If you think of digging a well, dig until you hit water.” “Vanhu voturuka, kuzochera mvura uchanzi uri gamba” “People will come to draw water. Then you’ll be called a hero.” “Hugamba huri pakawanda - hunoonekwa kuburikidza nemabasa” “Heroism is in serving the multitude. It’s SEEN through the work.” Not through words. Not through explanation. Through the work. Right now I’m in adaptive mode on a film (work, eat, sleep). Other ventures on hold, ideas for liberation, film, tennis, music slowly developing until I’m free again. Digging. Haven’t hit water yet. Nothing to show yet. Some days I wonder if I will. And then I see kids - KIDS - marching for something bigger than themselves. Taking absences for justice. Risking consequences because community matters more than comfort. Today students walked out across America. Denver. Phoenix. San Antonio. Atlanta. Austin. LA. They’re digging too. This song is a call: If you start, FINISH. If you build, complete it. If you play music, play until people rejoice. And when it works? Praise the source, not yourself. When it fails? Don’t curse your ancestors. Keep digging. The well I’m digging is for liberation - making a soft space for neurodiverse brains, sustainable careers, freedom to be unmasked and self and fulfilled. For building community that protects each other. To the youth: You reminded me today that the fire IS lit. All it took was that tiny spark. To everyone in survival mode: Chera kusvika wabata mvura. Dig until you hit water. People are waiting to drink. They just don’t know it yet. 🚁💧✊🏾 #Sungura #Zimbabwe #ICEOut #CommunityResistance audhd

I’ve listened to this song maybe 200 times this week. Morning. Lunch. Night. Dancing in my living room until my legs give out. This is auditory stimming—when autistic people use repetitive sound for regulation. But something wilder happens after 50+ listens: you start hearing every single part. Every harmony. Every riff. The bass doing its own thing. The lead guitar answering. You can move around this map of the music—zoom into one instrument, pull back to the whole, let different parts transport to different parts of your body. Combined with rhythmic stimming (latching your movement onto specific elements), it becomes a flow state. Cognitive processing. Emotional processing. Something spiritual too—where you FEEL the meaning of a song even before you understand the words. The song is “Chikopokopo” by Alick Macheso—Sungura music from Zimbabwe. Cyclical guitar patterns that spiral deeper each repetition. And the wisdom in the lyrics is wild: “Don’t raise children in a tray like bread” — Don’t mold them into identical loaves. “If you think of digging a well, dig until you hit water” — People will come drink. Having faith to keep on your dreams, working until you succeed, doing service for others. That’s when they call you a hero. Shown by your actions. Reconnecting to my Shona heritage through this music has been a whole journey. Macheso is a genius— 7 minutes of groove that becomes a universe if you let it. This is my invitation: there’s so much joy and wisdom beyond Western genres. Sungura will change your brain chemistry. Put it on repeat. Let it teach you. Also genuinely curious—do you loop songs this intensely? What’s your current repeat? Let’s talk. 🚁 #AuDHD #ActuallyAutistic #Stimming #Sungura #Zimbabwe

Working through this thought… Fela Kuti wrote “Shuffering and Shmiling” in 1978 about religious imperialism. The Archbishop lives in luxury in London. The Pope enjoys Rome. The Imam relaxes in Mecca. Meanwhile his people pack into buses like sardines, fainting, getting slapped by police, reaching home to no water - but they smile. Because they’ve been promised: “Suffer suffer for world, enjoy for heaven.” Here’s what I hear in 2026: The same criticisms still hold about pastors, religious figures, and prosperity promises, justifying and accepting suffering without meaningful action to end it. But in modern life also: “Archbishop” = Hustle culture influencers on yachts “Pope” = CEOs with four houses preaching grind “Imam” = Congress members owned by lobbyists “Heaven” = Retirement you’ll never reach The religion of toxic productivity has its own gospel: Your exhaustion proves your worth. Rest is laziness. Burnout is badge of honor. Suffer now. Enjoy… when exactly? Or only in small doses and this is supposed to be okay? 🤷🏾‍♂️ We have to work, yes (though UBI would be great!) - I’m lucky and happily working a 14-week film right now. At the same time, my Autism and ADHD and realistic capacity desperately want to avoid burn out. Before diagnosis and unmasking, performing productivity, I would just push through. Prove I’m not broken or lazy. Or just not even read the signs that I’m about to crash. And it’s days of recovery after a shoot, weeks after a feature, even after socializing, my brain hibernates 😅. But I’m trying something heretical: eating my food slowly. Taking the rest. Trying to make sure I sleep. Not performing productivity. I don’t remember the last time I just sat on the couch doing nothing. I need to do it way more. This video is me committing heresy against the grind gospel. Fela asked why we accept oppression. The answer hasn’t changed: we’ve been taught suffering is holy. Whether the promise is heaven or retirement, the powerful stay comfortable while we pack ourselves in like sardines. But some of us are done smiling. 🎧 Fela Kuti - Shuffering and Shmiling (1978) #audhd #autism #ToxicProductivity #RestIsResistance #FelaKuti

Night drive. Fela on repeat. Been in my head before, during, and after set. “We fear to fight for freedom… We fear to fight for liberty… We fear to fight for justice… We fear to fight for happiness…” Fela wrote this in 1977 after 1,000 soldiers attacked his compound and threw his mother from a window. She died from her injuries. He’d watched the Soweto uprising in South Africa on TV the year before. And tonight, as multicultural, Zimbabwean, South African, American, immigrant, citizen, nomad, watching what’s happening in America, watching what’s happening in so many places—I felt this song in my bones. It’s past, it’s present, it’s future. The fear is real. We’re all carrying something. But what if we didn’t have to carry it alone? I see you. Whoever’s reading this. Whatever you’re holding. Whatever you’re afraid of. When we truly see each other—when we rebuild community, when we say I got you—maybe we don’t have to be so afraid. We can take care of each other. We can be there for each other. You’re not alone in this. None of us are. 🎧 Fela Kuti - Sorrow Tears and Blood (1977) #felakuti #liberation #music #audhd #onrepeat

Sungura music is so good! Did not appreciate it enough until I started playing instruments in my late teens. Find this song - Gungwa by Alick Macheso, and listen to it! It’s impossibly good and so hard to pick a favorite part, but the jam and solo section stand out. Try to single out guitar and instruments and follow how creative they get with it. So many layers and parts combining. @simbasabau what’s your favorite Cheso Power jam? #sungura #music #zimbabwe #audhd #jamsession