Field Niggas
2014 USA, HD, 60min
“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. Not just avoiding but repudiating condescension, Khalik Allah’s camera, a longtime, welcome presence in the neighborhood, spotlights his subjects in stunningly composed, dignified portraits that are hypnotically woven with street images. The non-synch audio track consists of conversations with and among those faces: dreams, regrets, arguments, affection, observations, opinions. Field Niggas is a mesmerizing viewing experience, that finds its rhythm using field hollers. The title draws from Malcolm X’s “Message to the Grass Roots” speech, in which he targets the power balance that creates a dangerous wedge between the “house slaves” and the “field slaves.” Khalik Allah’s singular, trenchant film serves as an ardent call to rise above social constructs.” As told by Chris Boeckmann of True/False Films.
Antonyms of Beauty
2013, USA, 8/35 mm, 27min
Pointing to my head : You got no idea how deep this goes, and coherent all the way through. I read thousands of books that had me vacillating between insanity and sanity. Now I walk the precipice of death until there’s nothing left.
“I’ve been staring into the sun since I was a child. Some people told me not to do that. I did it anyway. I made Antonyms of Beauty for the same reason. I have to stare at what nobody wants to look at.” From Fotogragia Magazine.
Artist Statement:
I don’t see other photographers where I shoot, only surveillance cameras. When asked if fear was the main theme of my work I said it’s not fear, but the removal of fear leading to the awareness of Love that interest me. We don’t react to anything directly in the world, only to our interpretation of things. And our interpretations are mostly wrong. Photography is a therapeutic tool I use to confront my own perception, and challenge my ego. It strengthens my spirit when I see passed appearances and approach people who I would’ve otherwise avoided.
Khalik Allah, b. 1985, is a self taught filmmaker and photographer. His work has been described as visceral, hauntingly beautiful, penetrative and profoundly personal. In August of 2010 Khalik asked his father to loan him a camera to take some casual photographs of his emcee friend, The Genius of The Wu- Tang Clan. But when Khalik was given a fully manual, analogue film camera, his casual interest quickly became serious. Up until that point he was focused mainly on film-making. Photography became and extension of that film-making, allowing Khalik to create more quickly by telling stories in a single frame. Photography and film-making are two overlapping circles that form a venn diagram in Khalik Allah’s mind; the area where they overlap is the space he inhabits as an artist.
Omar Mullick is a film director and cinematographer known for his work on the 2013 feature film THESE BIRDS WALK. In 2012, Filmmaker Magazine named Omar one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Premiering at SXSW in 2013 and distributed theatrically by Oscilloscope Laboratories, THESE BIRDS WALK went on to be named as one of the best films of the year by the New Yorker Magazine, Indiewire, and Sight + Sound Magazine. It currently ranks as one of the best ever rated documentaries on Rotten Tomatoes.
