Jan Ellis has been involved in the entertainment industry for more than 20 years as actor, writer, director and producer. At the age of 14, he won an M-net Best Supporting Actor award for his role in Katinka Heyns’ "Fiela se Kind". Ten years later, he won an All African Film award for "Paljas", another Heyns film. He appeared in television series including Manakwalanders, Paradys, Egoli, Isidingo, Backstage, Crossroads, Amalia II and Known Gods. He toured Ireland and England in Athol Fugard’s "Hello and Goodbye" in 1997. Jan obtaining a BA cum laude degree in Communications from the University of South Africa, and lived in Japan, teaching English. In 2007, he moved to Sydney, Australia, where his South African-Portuguese wife, Gualdina, had lived for five years. Since living in Australia, he has done camera work and editing for the Red Bull Junior Surf Master Series (2008) and worked as a video encoder at the Microsoft Tech Ed conference in Barcelona in 2008. He also wrote scripts for the South African TV series, Binnelanders, via e-mail. Jan is a keen surfer and has a black belt in Judo. One of his interesting experiences was spending 100 days living in a Zen monastery in Japan.
