Kamau Bilal
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“What Happens When Making Cinema Stops?”: Kamau Bilal Thinks About Creative Futures
In April, as we began to put together the Summer, 2020 issue of Filmmaker, we asked directors, cinematographers, editors and other film workers to send us their thoughts on the quarantine and their own creative lives. The responses printed here were collected from April through mid-June — personal statements that speak variously to individual filmmaking practices, films halted mid-production, politics, art and life. Read all the responses here. — Editor Based on where my people are, I feel like I’m, at best, one to two generations early in trying to be an indie filmmaker. I feel selfish. Wealth of money (and […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020 -
Kamau Bilal on Serving as Director and DP for Documentary Short Baby Brother
Missouri-based filmmaker Kamau Bilal chronicles his brother’s move back home to his parents’ house in Baby Brother, a documentary short that premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. A documentary DP, editor and director, Bilal’s recent work includes shooting Abortion: Stories Women Tell for HBO. Below, Bilal discusses the traits of a “cinematic film,” the influence of Ramin Bahrani’s Chop Shop and his concerns on exploiting a documentary subject. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Bilal: For this film I operated […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 19, 2018
