Kala Mandrake's work as film writer, director, and producer may have begun in 2006 when she took on the role of producer at BBC Headquarters in America. There she worked closely with editors and voice-over talent while she wrote and produced promotional scripts. By early 2009, she transitioned from the BBC to HBO in New York City, where she served as both post-production producer and editor on various documentaries and film promotions. In 2011, Mandrake worked as part of the post-production and editing team for the first season of HBO's acclaimed original series, "Game of Thrones." Her work extended to projects with Cinemax and Nickelodeon as well. Additionally, she served as a researcher on the 2010 political thriller "Fair Game," directed by the award-winning Doug Liman and starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. In 2015, Mandrake co-wrote and edited the political documentary "The Brainwashing of My Dad," directed by Jen Senko and narrated by actor Matthew Modine. The film includes well-known figures like Noam Chomsky, and received several accolades, including awards from The Webby Awards and Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival. In 2017, she worked on romantic comedy "Sam," which featured Morgan Fairchild, directed by Nicholas Brooks and his father, legendary producer Mel Brooks. That same year, she also worked on a psychological thriller "The Eyes," starring actors Nicholas Turturro and Vincent Pastore. In October 2020, she released a unique "documentary-fairytale" film about her renowned grandfather, Mandrake the Magician. Contemporary to the 1930s comic superhero of the same name, Mandrake the Magician started his career in Vaudeville, performing and creating magic acts for his elaborate stage productions across America and the world, over a span of fifty years. His career and lifestyle influenced his granddaughter in her early years documenting New York's avant-garde with black & white film photography in the 1990s, music videos, and behind-the-scenes short films in the early 2000s. The movie about her grandfather combined Mandrake’s autobiographical writings with fictional interpretations and home movies, uncovering some "ghosts of the past," as she describes it. In 2022, she was contracted as film writer and director for the controversial political documentary based on the best-selling book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on the decades-long history of America’s captured government agencies by big corporations. In 2023, Kennedy asked her to create campaign videos and scripts for his upcoming U.S. Presidential run. Also in early 2023, she produced and edited promotional pieces for Holocaust survivor Vera Sharav’s debut film recounting the events that led up to the historic devastation. Throughout the years, she produced and edited 100 short films from director Marc Lafia’s 20+ years of home movies, a project which culminated in an immersive, interactive multi-screen film installation in New York in 2024. She wrote and edited a cinéma vérité documentary film with the same director, and in 2025, they completed the final cut, to be released later in the year.
Now please enjoy Mandrake’s free personal documentary series, "Time Capsule.” Each visual podcast episode is crafted by ©KalaMandrake and includes Cross-Interviews, Dear Diary entries, and Fairytale Shorts. The movies are not monetized and do not collect any earnings.
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