BlackStar Projects, SEEN Issue 003 

Publisher: BlackStar Projects 
Year: 2021
Pages: 206

Guest-edited by artist Darol Olu Kae, Seen’s third issue includes essays, reviews, interviews, original art and photography, and more. The issue features a wide range of voices, all touching upon a series of questions posed by Ghanaian filmmaker Nuotama Bodomo during her keynote address at BlackStar’s 2021 William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar: “Can we see ourselves?” “Can we see each other?” and “Can we see together?”

“Collectively, the pieces in Seen, issue 003, orbit around Bodomo’s questions, gathering up accumulative power, and extending her thoughts into new directions and terrain,” writes Kae in his introduction to the issue. “The participating artists, writers, and filmmakers offer a multitude of critical practices and approaches that help think beyond the restrictions of film and visual culture as it is presently defined.”

Highlights from the third issue of Seen include Jessica Lynne‘s profile of photographer Texas Isaiah; an interview with filmmakers Sophia Nahli Alison and Merawi Gerima on the power of Black filmmaking collectives in Los Angeles, conducted by Dr. Philana Payton; an essay on Christopher Kahunahana’s first full-length feature film by cultural critic and historian Jeff Chang; two interviews with Moroccan filmmaker Ahmed Bouanani from the early 1970s, translated by Omar Berrada; Jonathan Ali’s exploration of the possibilities of Caribbean cinema through a conversation with Maya Cozier about her debut fiction film; DJ Lynnée Denise’s review of Sacha Jenkins’s documentary Bitchin’: the Sound and Fury of Rick James; and a conversation between Amir George and filmmaker Miko Revereza.