Actress and President of the multi award winning boutique production company, Towerkop Creations, which has been specializing in female driven heroine stories since inception in 2010, Uga Carlini, made her non-fiction directorial debut with 'Alison', a deeply personal and emotional story of triumph and survival about rape survivor Alison Botha. Using a creative and innovative fairytale aesthetic, Carlini's film was dubbed a poetic and insightful exploration of trauma and overcoming. It won the Best Documentary Award at the Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards AMVCA and went on to win several other film awards worldwide for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay including Best Documentary Screenplay for the Writer's Guild of South Africa.
Her debut fiction film, 'Angeliena', for Netflix, enjoyed a worldwide release on the platform in October 2021. It tells the story of the colorful, beloved parking attendant Angeliena who after a string of life-changing revelations, pieces a new plan together and chases her dream of traveling the world. It won at the 2022 SAFTAs (South African Film and Television Awards) and at the 2022 African Movie Academy Awards. The screenplay was also a finalist for the South African Writer's Guild Muse Awards.
2023 saw her next feature, ‘Beyond the Light Barrier, narrated by John Kani, see the light for Amazon Prime. The film is currently on its festival run where it opened at Encounters Documentary Film Festival. There it was a Aiaha Award FINALIST, which rewards excellence in documentary filmmaking by African women as well as SPECIAL MENTION for the Al Jazeera Best Documentary Award for the Best African Documentary. It also won BEST FOREIGN DOCUMENTARY at Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, Canada as well as BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY at the 8 & HalFilm Awards, London Movie Awards and a Silver Award at the Hollywood Gold Awards. The script also won BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY SCREENPLAY at the Writers Guild of South Africa Screenwriters Muse Awards.
Always returning to her first love acting, when possible, Uga's professional background also includes directing commercials, music videos and documentary pieces of which many have won several international awards. In 2023, she was also invited to apply for the 2023 Academy Gold Fellowship for Women, which is by invitation only and run by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.
Uga is a member of the PGA of America (Producers Guild of America)