Joshua Kantara
Founder & CEO
Work in Progress
We decided to launch early to learn directly from you. ZANOA is constantly evolving, and we are building new features every week based on your feedback.
The view from the set.
Joshua Kantara is an Afro-German actor, director, and producer based in Berlin. His work spans national and international productions, including the Netflix series Cassandra , the feature film Girl You Know It’s True ( Bayerischer Filmpreis ), and Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes . Alongside acting, he has directed documentaries in West Africa, developed award-recognized short films, and produced commercial projects with clients across Europe.
What shaped Joshua’s perspective wasn’t a single role or title, but the time spent moving through very different corners of the industry. He has worked on large studio sets and student productions , stood next to gaffers and boom operators during long night shoots, talked workflows with directors under pressure, and listened to crew members who keep productions running without ever being visible. Across departments, budgets, and hierarchies, the conversations kept circling back to the same frustrations.
Work in this industry is still largely assigned through closed networks . Crew members depend on Production Managers and Line Producers to remember them when a project starts, which keeps the job market fragmented , regional , and difficult to access beyond one’s immediate circle. Portfolios live across personal websites and Instagram feeds that aren’t designed to be searched, compared, or understood in a professional production context, while legacy platforms offer little incentive to improve usability or visual presentation because there are few real alternatives. At the same time, communication is scattered across emails , messengers , spreadsheets , and tools that were never built to reflect how film productions actually collaborate.
ZANOA grew out of those shared experiences. Not as a solution imagined in isolation, but as a response shaped by years of listening , observing , and working alongside professionals from very different backgrounds. Joshua founded ZANOA as a filmmaker who needed a better way to work and who knew that if the problem felt universal on set, the solution had to be built the same way: collaboratively , practically , and with respect for how the industry actually operates.
