Isaac Julien
About
Biography
Biography
This British black independent filmmaker's meditation on poet Langston Hughes, "Looking For Langston" (1989), gained notoriety when it was shown at the New York Film Festival because of its focus on the poet's homosexuality. In 1983, the art-student-turned-filmmaker founded Sankofa Film and Video with three other black film students and subsequently directed a series of short films.
Julien's first fiction feature, "Young Soul Rebels" (1991), concerned two lifelong friends--one a slightly effeminate, heterosexual mulatto, the other a macho, homosexual black man--who operate a pirate radio station in the late 1970s. The film, which won the Critics Week Prize at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, examined the early punk-rock era and featured a murder mystery subplot. Much of Julien's work has explored the tensions and angst of the outsider within a majority culture: whether it be a black torn from his own cultural anthropology by slavery, or a gay man in a heterosexual world or some combination of the two. His first short was "Who Killed Colin Roach?" (1983) and he followed with the heralded "The Passion of Remembrance" (1986, made in collaboration with Maureen Blackwood) which examined the concerns of British black youths. He stepped aside from his own filmmaking to serve as assistant director on "Dreaming Rivers" (1988), but was back at the helm with "Looking for Langston." The gays in the black world theme was also prevalent in "A Darker Side of Black," the 1993 documentary which focused on homophobia in rap and reggae music. In 1995, Julien seemingly stepped away from his usual themes with "That's Rush!," a documentary about the right wing radio and TV host Rush Limbaugh. (Like much of the director's work, it aired in the USA on PBS.) That same year, Julien participated as senior producer in "The Question of Equality" (PBS), a dialogue on the place of gays and lesbians within the civil rights movement. "Frantz Falon: Black Skin, White Mask" (1996) profiled the Caribbean-born psychiatrist whose book, "The Wretched of the Earth," is called "the bible of the decolonialization movement" in Africa and whose works are read in both the Third World and by political activists throughout the world.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Assistant Direction (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Casting (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Producer (Special)
Misc. Crew (Special)
Life Events
1983
Co-founded Sankofa Film and Video, a Channel 4-funded collective of young black filmmakers
1983
Directed first short film, "Who Killed Colin Roach?"
1984
First short film produced by Sankofa, "Territories"
1986
Co-directed feature, "The Passion of Remembrance", with Maureen Blackwood
1987
Served as assistant director on "Dreaming Rivers"
1989
Directed experimental short, "Looking For Langston"
1989
Directed Peter Gabriel music video, "Shaking the Tree"
1991
"Young Soul Rebels", solo feature debut, selected to open Critics Week at Cannes Film Festival
1994
Lived in NYC
1995
Directed "That Rush!", a look at the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon
1996
Made documentary on famed revolutionary icon Frantz Fanon, "Black Skin, White Mask"
1999
Created the film installation "The Long Road to Mazatlan"; has been displayed at galleries throughout the world
Videos
Movie Clip
