Jamaa Fanaka

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Jamaa Fanaka (September 6, 1942, Jackson, Mississippi) is an award-winning American filmmaker.

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[edit] Biography

Fanaka was born Walter Gordon on September 6, 1942 to Robert L. and Beatrice Gordon in Jackson, Mississippi.[1] In 1971, Fanaka was accepted into the film school at UCLA. During his years at UCLA Film School (including study in both the undergraduate and graduate programs), Fanaka received competitive academic grants including a Ford Foundation Grant, Rockefeller Grant, UCLA Chancellor's Grant, UCLA Black Studies Center Grant, New York State Council for the Arts Grant and an Independent Filmmaker Grant from the American Film Institute. Fanaka took his undergraduate degree summa cum laude and his Master's degree with a straight-A average.

The early 1970s was a very important time for black filmmakers at UCLA.[citation needed] Since 1952, when Ike Jones became the first black person to graduate from the film school, blacks were largely seen, but not heard.[citation needed] However, upon the arrival of fellow Mississipian Charles Burnett in 1967 and Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima the following year, there emerged a significant black independent movement at the school. The first wave of these filmmakers also included Larry Clark, John Reir, Ben Caldwell, Pamela Jones, Abdosh Abdulhafiz and Fanaka. These filmmakers were part of what essayist Ntongela Masilela dubbed, "The Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers."[2]

However, while Masilela states that "a fundamental tenet of the Los Angeles school was an opposition to Hollywood," Fanaka was a notable exception. He describes Fanaka as "very much fascinated by Hollywood and averse to the contentious ideological and artistic discussions that were fundamental to the formation of the school."[3]

Fanaka maintains: "What some at the school may have mistaken for 'facination with Hollywood' was my tremendous respect for great Hollywood filmmakers like William Wyler and my desire to make feature-length films in order to reach the biggest audience possible."

Indeed, according to an article in The Los Angeles Sentinel, +Fanaka is the first and only filmmaker in cinema history to write, produce, direct, and achieve theatrical distribution for three feature films that were made as part of his or her academic curricula at a film school."[citation needed] The films were Welcome Home, Brother Charles 1975, a provocative film about the ravages and dire consequences of racism; and Emma Mae (1976), the story of a young woman who arrives in Los Angeles from Mississippi to live with her mother's sister and her family after her mother dies, and survives the culture shock that accompanied the move; and Penitentiary (1979) which tells the story of a young man wrongly sent to prison, who, through his boxing talents, is able to win his freedom.

In researching Welcome Home Brother Charles, Fanaka states that he learned: "In order to frighten white women from having sex with the slaves, the slaveowners created a myth that equated the sexual prowess of the black man with their vastly exaggerated size of the black man's sexual equipment. Instead of scaring white women, the myth backfired and intrigued them."

In Welcome Home Brother Charles, Fanaka shows the ridiculousness of the 'all penis, no brain' myth surrounding black men by what fellow UCLA classmate Ben Caldwell calls, "Fanaka's powerful use of surrealism in one major scene."

To the surprise of some people at UCLA, Fanaka not only completed his first feature film, Welcome Home Brother Charles, but he was able to obtain theatrical distribution for the film through Crown International Pictures.

The following year, an independent distribution company, Pro International, released Fanaka Master's thesis film, Emma Mae, which is arguably one of his most personal films.

Penitentiary (1979), was the third feature film that Fanaka completed as part of Fanaka's academic curricula while attending UCLA. It was distributed theatrically by The Jerry Gross Organization.

According to Todd McCarthy of Daily Variety and Turner Classic Movies' Web Site (TCM.com), Penitentiary became the most successful independent film of 1980 at the box office. The film received excellent reviews from such major newspapers as the San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Variety, and the Los Angeles Times. Gertrude Gipson, the entertainment editor of America's top black-owned newspaper, The Los Angeles Sentinel, called Penitentiary "Jamaa Fanaka's brutal masterpiece of violent prison life."

With the success of Penitentiary, Fanaka demonstrated that with the right material, black films could be extremely popular with audiences even without big budgets or name actors.

Fanaka completed Street Wars in 1992 and he is currently in post production on Hip Hop Hope, his first documentary feature film on the the underground Hip Hop culture.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Phelps, Shirelle (editor) (1998). Who's Who Among African Americans (11th Edition). Detroit: Gale Research, 405. ISBN 0-7876-2469-1. 
  2. ^ Masilela, Ntongela (1993), “The Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers”, in Diawara, Manthia, Black American Cinema, New York, London: Routledge, pp. 107 
  3. ^ Masilela, Ntongela (1993), “The Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers”, in Diawara, Manthia, Black American Cinema, New York, London: Routledge, pp. 115 

[edit] Filmography

  • A Day in the Life of Willie Faust (short, c. 1972)
  • Welcome Home, Brother Charles (1975)
  • Emma Mae (1976)
  • Penitentiary (1979)
  • Penitentiary II (1982)
  • Penitentiary III (1987)
  • Street Wars (1992)

[edit] References

[edit] External links