NOFF 2023 Interview: Michéle Stephenson’s “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” illuminates a reimagined future

I’m going to keep my intro brief because I feel filmmaker Michéle Stephenson speaks to the truth of her film “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” which she co-directed with Joe Brewster, in more of an eloquent way than I could. So this interview […]

NOFF 2023 Interview: Nailah Jefferson on Her Empowering Documentary, “Commuted”

In 1993, Danielle Metz, a first-time nonviolent offender, was sentenced to triple-life plus twenty years. In 2016, she was granted clemency by the Obama Administration. Nailah Jefferson, a storyteller and documentarian, has now made the film “Commuted,” which chronicles Danielle’s life post-prison. I was fortunate […]

“We are part of anything that is possible and imaginable”: Directors Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams on “Neptune Frost” 

Africa’s cinematic history is as diverse as its people. There’s our Senegalese cinematic “father” Ousmane Sembène, the post-colonial emergence of Nigeria’s Nollywood (the largest film industry on the continent, and second largest in the world in terms of volume), the indigenous cinema from Egypt or Tunisia […]

A mental breakdown breaks through stigmas in Maria Judice’s feature debut, “Elephant”

We had the opportunity to speak with activist and filmmaker Maria Judice about her directorial feature debut “Elephant,” which will have its in-person premiere at the Ann Arbor Film Festival on Sunday, 3/27 at 3:15 PM ET. You can watch it at the fest virtually now. Buy […]