I have always wanted to make a difference. I have tried to fulfill this aspiration by creating, teaching, and consulting.

My creative medium has been media film, video, digital. Through these platforms, I have sought to challenge the status quo, to interrogate and investigate our collective psyche as Americans. This has been the foundation of my aspirations to make a difference.

Since 1979, I have been making documentary films that examine themes of injustice. My films are about America; about whom we have been; who we are; who we aspire to be. I have committed myself to creating a record of America by trying to deal with the topics that challenge our sense of who we are and our sense of justice, but more importantly, to make films that will have sustained impact. As a viewer of several of my films told me: you make films about the stories we prefer to keep hidden.

Yes, I try to tell the stories we’d rather not tell.

My films have examined the residue of slavery through various prisms. Two Towns of Jasper is a response to a racially motivated murder. Banished looks at the legacy of American racial cleansing. MLK Blvd: The Concrete Dream considers the meaning of naming a street for Martin Luther King Jr., and Freedom Summer is a film about the death of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.

I have tackled the issue of race in America because as an artist I seek to explore the difficult– and race is generally a subject that people would rather not talk about, much less think about. In a sense, to investigate or interrogate race invariably creates an environment, a scenario fraught with risk. In this way, my films create a dynamic of opposition to the norm and status quo.

This was true even at the start of my career when my films were explicitly personal– From Harlem to Harvard and In Search of Our Fathers each seed the personal into my work. Both were told from a first person point of view. The success of In Search of Our Fathers gave me the opportunity to tell stories differently.

Aesthetically, I am working very hard to not be confined by my approach to telling stories. I strive to push against any single notion or expectation that others have of me or my work. All creative people must evolve to survive.

For example, my early films document horrors and atrocities.  Now, I want my work to consider solutions, as well as prospects and mechanisms for change.

TEACHING — SEEKING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

https://www.kcet.org/shows/fine-cut/why-should-you-consider-film-school-if-you-want-to-make-films

I have been teaching filmmaking for twenty-five years.  I have been associated with seven different film programs in my career.  I learned filmmaking at Harvard.  I received a MFA from UCLA in their Producer’s Program.  I have taught at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, New York University, and Northwestern University in Qatar.

Teaching extends to other forms of mentoring and consulting; I help to develop the next generation of storytellers and society changers.

I HAVE CONSULTED ON AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARIES:

https://www.bakarisellersdocumentary.com/by Emily Harrold

Old South by Danielle Beverly

https://www.facebook.com/93QueenFilm/ by Paula Eiselt

Bible Quiz by Nicole Teeny

More Than a Month by Shukree Tilghman

A Son’s Sacrifice and Bronx Princess by Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed