Imruh Bakari, pioneering filmmaker, lecturer, writer and poet, talks to Linton Kwesi Johnson about his long career in films.

Filmmaker. Imruh Bakari, pioneering filmmaker, lecturer, writer and poet, talks to Linton Kwesi Johnson about his long career in films, as director and producer; the challenges faced by young black aspiring filmmakers during the nineteen eighties and early nineties; working with the late Menelik Shabazz and the late Henry G Martin; and curating film festivals in Africa.

Biography

Imruh Bakari was born in Basseterre, St Kitts & Nevis. He is a graduate of the National Film and Television School. He is a co-founder of Ceddo, a film and video production training organization. His film and television credits include The Mark of The Hand – profile of the Guyanese painter, Aubrey Williams (1986); Blue Notes and Exiled Voices – documentary about South African musicians in Britain (1991); and African Tales – a series of short films (2005 -2008). Bakari was director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (1999–2004) and a member of the Advisory Council of the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers. In 2013 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Afrika Film Festival in Belgium. His poetry collections are Without Passport or Apology (2017) and The Madman in This House (2021), published by Smokestack Books. He is a lecturer in Film Studies and Screenwriting at the University of Winchester.