Cecile Emeke's Ten Year Retrospective & Anniversary Screening

Welcome to the 10 Year Anniversary Screening!

Come celebrate a decade of cecileemeke.com's">span>'s filmmaking practice with us at Genesis Cinema on Saturday September 21st. We will be screening work from across the last decade, including:

Cecile will be in conversation with Rianna Jade Parker, Candice Carty-Williams and Abraham Adeyemi post film, before opening up the conversation to the audience. The intention is to use Cecile's work as a departure point into a broader conversation about film, tv, art and culture at large: Who were we and where were we in 2014? How has the landscape changed? How have we changed? And who are we becoming? Who do we want to be and where do we want to be a decade from now in 2034?

Cecile Emeke is a filmmaker, writer and artist from london, with a body of work that spans broadcast television, independent film and visual art. Cecile’s work often explores time, cosmology and cultural production, through the prism of the Black diasporic experience, within liminal spaces and intimate settings. Cecile is well known for her versatility and dexterity in being able to seamlessly explore her interests across various mediums and genres. Cecile has directed and written for broadcasters such as HBO, BBC and Sky, as well as received film and moving image commissions from Tate Modern, ICA, Dazed, amongst others. Cecile is particularly well known for her globally acclaimed documentary series ’strolling’, which recorded conversations with people across the black diaspora, as well as ‘ackee & saltfish’, her widely regarded comedy short film turned web-series, that followed the relatable and everyday happenings of two best friends. Cecile’s work has been extensively profiled, from The New York Times to Sight and Sound magazine, her work has been exhibited and screened globally from The Brooklyn Museum to The National Gallery of Jamaica, and she has spoken at various institutions from Oxford university to her infamous talk at The Institute of Education, for an unexpected audience of over 1000 people. Picture Credit: Campbell Addy (2020)

Rianna Jade Parker is a writer, historian and curator.Her criticism and essays have appeared in ARTnews, Artforum, The Guardian, Frieze, BOMB and The Art Newspaper. She contributed to numerous catalogue and gallery publications for Stephen Friedman Gallery, Thadeous Ropac, Hayward Gallery, MoMA, Thames & Hudson, Royal Academy, Phaidon Press and ICA Boston. She is a Contributing Writer at Frieze magazine and a Contributing Editor for Tate Publishing. She is the author of two books ‘A Brief History of Black British Art’ (Tate Publishing) and forthcoming ‘A World of Black Artists’ (Frances Lincoln).In 2021, Rianna co-curated War Inna Babylon: The Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. The exhibition broke daily visitor records at the ICA and has become one of the most successful exhibitions in the 75-year history of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). Following this she was invited to be a board member for Turner-prize nominated collective, Forensic Architecture. For several years, Rianna has been leading, conceptualising and executing complex projects with arts professionals and bodies internationally, including; Art Fund UK, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Tate Library and Archive, Tate Modern, Cambridge University, New Local Space (NLS) Kingston, National Gallery of Jamaica, the Black Cultural Archives. Picture Credit: RJP, Loophole of Retreat (Venice, 2023) Laylah Amatullah Barrayn.

Candice Carty-Williams was born and raised in south London. She is a showrunner, culture writer, and author of Book of the Year Award winning and Sunday Times bestselling Queenie, as well as the young adult novella Empress and Aniya, and the Sunday Times bestselling People Person. In 2016, Candice created and launched the Guardian and 4th Estate Short Story Prize for underrepresented writers, the first inclusive initiative of its kind in book publishing. Candice is the ex Guardian Review books columnist, has interviewed and written for i-D, Vogue, The Face, the Sunday Times, BEAT Magazine, Black Ballad and many more publications. Queenie received global acclaim, and was described as vital, disarmingly honest and boldly political. It was adapted for Channel 4 and Hulu this year, and her original drama, Champion, aired on BBC One in the UK, and on Netflix globally, in 2023.

Abraham Adeyemi is a multi-award-winning writer-director from South London. His directorial debut ‘No More Wings’ world premiered and won best narrative short at Tribeca. He has since directed (as a mentee) on Netflix’s Top Boy, contributed to several writers rooms on BBC and Netflix series and is developing a number of original projects for film and television, including a feature with Film 4, a TV series with House Productions and another under the mentorship of Jesse Armstrong (Succession). His sophomore short film ‘Chasing the Night’ is currently travelling on the festival circuit and won best short at the BAFTA-qualifying S.O.U.L. Fest. Abraham strives to tell stories that explore the multiple facets of human behaviour, the range of perspectives we carry and the complex dichotomies of life that exist within that, sans condemnation. Lastly, he would like you to know that he is a socks and green tea enthusiast, and his life would be incomplete without his loved ones.

We look forward to celebrating with you!

See you on 21st September 2024!