Louis Massiah
Faculty & Staff >> Louis Massiah
Massiah, Louis
Professor
E-mail: Massiah@american.edu
Louis Massiah is an independent documentary filmmaker whose films often explore historical and political subjects. A MacArthur Foundation fellow, his works include W.E.B. Du Bois - a Biography in Four Voices and Louise Thompson Patterson: In Her Own Words, a biography of the activist and organizer. His current project for public television, Haytian Stories, examines the complex relationship between the United States and Haiti. He has used the documentary as a tool for exploring community histories in The Bombing of Osage Avenue, on the 1985 Philadelphia police bombing, and as a producer/director of Power! and A Nation of Law?, two films for the PBS series Eyes on the Prize II.
Massiah is the founder, and executive director of, the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, a media arts organization that provides low-cost workshops and equipment access to emerging video/filmmakers. Currently, he is conducting the Precious Places Citywide Community History Project, a series of short documentaries produced collaboratively with 40 neighborhood organizations in and around Philadelphia. Massiah has received awards from Columbia-DuPont, the Global Village Documentary Festival, the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, and fellowships from the Pew Trust and the Rockefeller Foundation. Aside from teaching at Scribe, Massiah has been a lecturer and resident artist at the Princeton University Atelier, Haverford College, and the University of Pennsylvania.
