Khalik Allah
Directing
Biography
Khalik Allah is a self taught filmmaker and photographer. His profoundly personal work has been described as visceral, hauntingly beautiful, penetrative and honest. Khalik’s first book of photographs, Souls Against the Concrete, will be published by University of Texas Press in 2017. His eye for daring portraiture and bold aesthetics have distinguished him as a new visionary in the field. With his award-winning film Field Niggas, Khalik garnered the attention of The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vice, and The Guardian.
Known For
The second "visual album" (a collection of short films) by Beyoncé, this time around she takes a piercing look at racial issues and feminist concepts through a sexualized, satirical, and solemn tone.
Lemonade
At night, the streets of Harlem are haunted by lost souls. Bodies that drift around in the darkness and bear the weight of the past on their shoulders. The Haitian man Frenchie is one of them, and his accentuated stutter bears witness to exile and years of abuse. But he is more than just that in Khalik Allah's new, hypnotic film opus, which turns the American tradition of social realist street photography into its own art form.
I Walk on Water
Part film, part baptism, in BLACK MOTHER director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, BLACK MOTHER channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica’s turbulent history but existing in the urgent present.
Black Mother
NYC based photographer, Khalik Allah, travels to Jamaica to connect with family and document the streets. This is his synopsis.
KHAMAICA
Set entirely at night, Field Niggas takes us to the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem and introduces us to its faces. The non-synch audio track consists of conversations with and among those faces: dreams, regrets, arguments, affection, observations, opinions.
Field Niggas
Khalik Allah’s unflinching follow-up to his short URBAN RASHOMON breaks down the barriers between photography and cinema to create a free-associative portrait of a mentally ill homeless man named Frenchie. 9Filmed May 4th, 9th, 17th 2013. Harlem, NYC0
Antonyms of Beauty
Short film profiling Azreal, the first white member of the Five-Percent Nation.
Azreal: A 5% Story
With raw, harrowing honesty, photographer-filmmaker Khalik Allah explores the complex relationship between artist and subject as he reflects on his friendship with a homeless addict living on the streets of Harlem.
Urban Rashomon
Images reflecting on a solitary life in a Swedish apartment. In old age, a woman confronts her feelings towards the man she used to live with, but whom is no longer around.
Grandma about Grandpa
An adventure into the mind of Popa Wu, the patriarch of the world renown rap group Wu Tang Clan. Popa Wu is also a prominent member of the 5% Nation; a nation of people who teach that man is God. The 5% Nation is hardly known throughout the world, yet it has greatly affected the world by injecting supreme knowledge into the lyrics of Hip Hop and contributing to the lexicon of today's urban youth culture.
Popa Wu: A 5% Story
A young man is indoctrinated into the Five-Percent Nation.