IFFR x WPPR: Khalik Allah

Photographer, cameraman and director Khalik Allah his approach, which he himself describes as 'Camera Ministry'. It results in work that has already been described as 'street opera': honest and intimate, overwhelming and colourful. It did not go unnoticed: in 2016 Allah worked as cameraman and assistant director on Beyoncé's famous video album Lemonade.

As a photographer, since 2012 he has recorded nightlife on the junction of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in the New York district of Harlem. With analogue cameras and only ambient light sources, he made raw and intimate shots of the colourful locals. In 2015, he broke through as a filmmaker with Field Niggas. The sequel, Black Mother, a documentary ode to Jamaica, the homeland of Allah's mother, won the Yellow Robin Award at the last IFFR Curaçao. In this talk, organised in cooperation with World Press Photo Rotterdam, he talks about the background and making of this magnum opus.