Arthur Jafa
b. 1960
Arthur Jafa is a cinematographer, director and visual artist. Jafa was born in 1960 in Toldeo, Mississippi and raised in Clarksdale, MS. He graduated in 1983 from Howard University in Washington, D.C, where he trained as an architect. After graduation, Jafa experimented with film making, directing the film Considerations (1983) and Slowly This (1995). It was Jafa’s work as a cinematographer that gained him global recognition. His role as director of photography for the 1991 film, Daughters of the Dust, directed by Julie Dash, earned him ‘Best Cinematography’ at the Sundance Film Festival. He went on to work as a cinematographer for many influential films including Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1993), Crooklyn (1994) and I Am Ali (2002), collaborating with directors such as Spike Jonze, Andrew Dosunmu and Haile Gerima. He later began to direct more of his own films including Sharifa Walks (2015), APEX (2013), Black Millennium (2000) and Corner (2000), along with co-directing Deshotten 1.0 (2009) and Adrian Younge (2015) with Malik Sayeed. Jafa co-founded TNEG with Sayeed, a motion picture studio 'whose goal is to create a black cinema as culturally, socially, and economically centra…
Films