Films
Shahadah is best known for directing the documentary 500 Years Later, an influential film that explores the psycho-cultural effects of slavery and colonialism in the African Diaspora. The film won 5 international awards including: Breaking Chains Award 2007, UNESCO (presented at ZIFF film festival in Zanzibar, Best Documentary at the Pan African (Los Angeles) and Bridgetown (Barbados) Film Festivals; Best Film at the International Black Cinema (Berlin) Film Festival; and Best International Documentary at the Harlem (New York) International Film Festival. It was nominated for 'Best of the Best' at FESPACO. In October 2005, 500 Years Later was screened at the Millions More Movement. Philadelphia Weekly wrote, "When participants gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the Millions More Movement rally last month, they also became one of the largest film audiences in history." He has also directed The Idea with (Tunde Jegede), a black comedy, as well as the political documentary Our Story Our Voice (2007) which was selected for Best Documentary at the Pan-African Film Festival. In 2004 he began working on the multi-award winning documentary Motherland 2010. Motherland is one of the first Pan-African documentaries on the continent of Africa.
Read more about this topic: Owen 'Alik Shahadah
Famous quotes containing the word films:
“Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they’re doing and saying in films right now just shouldn’t be allowed. There’s no dignity anymore and I think that’s very important.”
—Mae West (1892–1980)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“Does art reflect life? In movies, yes. Because more than any other art form, films have been a mirror held up to society’s porous face.”
—Marjorie Rosen (b. 1942)