Heineken Affinity Award Profile: Nelson George

This is the first in a series of posts spotlighting the ten Heineken Affinity Award winners. 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. One of the ten filmmakers is Nelson George. An author and filmmaker, George has been responsible for celebrating diversity in films like Life Support, which he directed and stars Queen Latifah and Good Hair, a documentary he produced and stars Chris Rock (fans of '90s hip hop will remember Rock's early classic, CB4, which George also produced). Also a veteran journalist, George wrote the acclaimed Hip Hop America and the novel The Plot Against Hip Hop. Recently, George directed one of ESPN's "30 for 30" documentaries, The Announcement, which looked at Magic Johnson's shocking 1991 HIV announcement. His latest film, Finding The Funk, has been selected to this year's SXSW; the film is described as a "road trip in search of the past, present and future of Funk music." Asked what does he want audiences to get out of his filmmaking, George replies... "My mother was a New York City school teacher for twenty-five years and was my inspiration and role model. So I always hope that, on some level or another, my work is educational, that it informs as well as entertains. Cinema is an amazing tool for passing on philosophies, insights or plain old facts; for correcting the historical record or to challenge it. I hope that my work, whether fiction on non-fiction, engages the mind as well as the soul." VOTE HERE