Heineken Affinity Award Profile: Andrew Dosunmu
Read all the profiles here. An initiative through our Tribeca All Access® program, the Affinity Award celebrates emerging and established African-American filmmakers by creating further awareness and dialogue around their work. Learn more here. Along with the Affinity Award winners receiving an initial grant, you can now vote for one filmmaker to win a $20,000 cash award, which will be announced during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Vote here.
It's been quite a ride for Andrew Dosunmu since he was a design assistant at Yves Saint Laurent. Since then the photographer/filmmaker has done everything from shoot for some of the most recognized international magazines to being creative director for the album covers of artists like Erykah Babu and Public Enemy (and directed music videos for the likes of Wyclef Jean, and Common) to even directing episodes of South Africa's acclaimed series Yizo, Yizo. He first came to prominence as a filmmaker in 1999 for his award-winning documentary Hair Irons, which looked at African-American hairstylists preparing for the annual "Hair Wars" competition in Detroit. Then his first feature, Restless City, about an African immigrant surviving the hustle of New York City, found attention at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (which was released by fellow Affinity winner Ava DuVernay's AFFRM). Dosunmu's latest, Mother of George, which looks at a couple struggling to conceive a child, screened at this year's Sundance and was bought by Oscilloscope. Asked what he wants audiences to get out of his filmmaking, Dosunmu says… "My primary intention in my filmmaking is to invite the viewer into worlds that will intrigue, inform, and perhaps educate. My goal is simply to shine light on the corners and pockets of society that the average viewer tends to not see. And I want to tell the stories of the African diaspora that so rarely get told. We live full lives—we work, we laugh, we make love, we build families. All of the stories we tell and the stories we live are as diverse and varied as that of any other people. I want viewers to watch my films and be transported."
