John Akomfrah (b 1957)
John Akomfrah
John Akomfrah, CBE (born 4 May 1957), is a British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator of Ghanaian descent, whose "commitment to a radicalism both of politics and of cinematic form finds expression in all his films".
A founder of the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982, he made his début as a director with Handsworth Songs (1986), which examined the fallout from the 1985 Handsworth riots. Handsworth Songs went on to win the Grierson Award for Best Documentary in 1987.
In the words of The Guardian, he "has secured a reputation as one of the UK’s most pioneering film-makers [whose] poetic works have grappled with race, identity and post-colonial attitudes for over three decades."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Akomfrah
https://www.artandobject.com/news/john-akomfrahs-visions-our-future-history
see also
A conversation with filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, exploring how his work with montage can be understood to articulate contemporaneity in sensuous ways.
Taking the form of a conversation with filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, this book sets out to explore how Akomfrah's work with montage can be understood to articulate contemporaneity in sensuous ways. In multilayered video installations, sequences of images are forced into the same time and space, allowing the viewer to experience connections in her/his/their present. With examples from many of his key works, topics discussed include untold histories and the diaspora, migration, and "the enigma of arrival." Akomfrah defines his way of working with montage not only as a technique but as an ethic, an ontology in which differences are brought together.
Why have certain kinds of documentary and non-narrative films emerged as the most interesting, exciting, and provocative movies made in the last twenty years? Ranging from the films of Ross McElwee (Bright Leaves) and Agnès Varda (The Gleaners and I) to those of Abbas Kiarostami (Close Up) and Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir), such films have intrigued viewers who at the same time have struggled to categorize them. Sometimes described as personal documentaries or diary films, these eclectic works are, rather, best understood as cinematic variations on the essay. So argues Tim Corrigan in this stimulating and necessary new book. Since Michel de Montaigne, essays have been seen as a lively literary category, and yet--despite the work of pioneers like Chris Marker--seldom discussed as a cinematic tradition. The Essay Film, offering a thoughtful account of the long rapport between literature and film as well as novel interpretations and theoretical models, provides the ideas that will change this.
John Akomfrah and the Image as Intervention
By Haley Weiss
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