Bijou Festival Filmmakers

JAMES BOWMAN

Becoming an animator has always been my dream since childhood. It was when I saw the film, Watership Down, that I knew animating was what I wanted to do. This, along with the artistic endeavors of my older brothers, kept me wanting to create or build whatever was within my imagination. Eventually, my journey led to the MFA Computer Art program at the School of Visual Arts, where I studied 3D animation. I started out my animation career as an intern with a small animation company called C-Traze Studios. This led to working as a production assistant on a sci-fi TV pilot with 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. But ultimately, it was when my graduate thesis film, “Life's Journey” was accepted to the Urbanworld Film Festival, that I slowly began to see myself as a filmmaker. Along with Urbanworld, Life's Journey was screened through the likes of the Pan-African, Ohio Independent, ImageNation film festivals and more. I’ve gone on to create numerous other animated short films, which have been seen at various festivals and screening events. And I am very proud to have my latest animated music video, Train Ride, featured at Bijou. What I tried to do with Train Ride, both musically and visually, was to take the audience away from everyday life for a few moments. This could very well be a vision of a house head becoming lost in the music. It has always been my hope that my creative works allow the audience to visualize and think about the many aspects of life and living.

Celestina Aleobua is an Actress, Writer, Director, and Producer based in Toronto, Canada. Born in Lesotho to Nigerian parents and raised in South Africa, Celestina has a passion for telling stories that preserve African culture and history. As a filmmaker, her narratives focus on cultural enlightenment through the creation of authentic black stories.

In September 2023, Celestina, alongside her co-creator Naira Adedeji, pitched their television series Jaded at the Toronto International Film Festival and won two awards.

Celestina is the founder of ThatAfrikan Productions and has written, produced, directed and starred in numerous films and TV shows, including Tina, When Will You Marry? (2024), Second Wind (2022), Finch (2019), The People of Sand (2018), Showtime's Fellow Travellers (2023), and Skydance/ Amazon Studio's Reacher (2022).

She hopes to continue rising and sharing her talents with the art of storytelling.

Wendel Assis de Brito is a Director and Director of Photography who works in Salvador's audiovisual scene, has worked in several companies such as Revista Trip, FitDance and Agência California. He has won several awards as Director of Photography and Director such as Mvf Music Video Underground Fade to Black etc. It currently has more than 150 million views in music videos and has filmed important products for major brands such as Grupo Ambev Prefeitura de Salvador, Afropunk, TVE, Coca - Cola…, and has recorded artists such as Zé Manoel, Luedji Luna, Silva, Marina Senna, etc... And recently I had the photograph of Salvador Capital Afro, a project that moves and strengthens Salvador's Afro culture and also directed and photographed the International Afropunk event, the largest black culture event in the world. He is currently producing and writing short and feature films and moving the audiovisual scene with Marias Produtora and is the creation of Projeto Cultural Bagunçaço, in which he entered art through music.

Aquarius Ester is an experimental artist, clinical massage therapist and Afro-Surrealist filmmaker from the Roseland/West Pullman neighborhoods of Chicago. Aquarius was one of OTV's 2020 Film Fellows and her script, Second Sunday, has been selected for Full Spectrum Feature's 2021 Independent Producer's Lab. In 2021, Aquarius received the Englewood Arts Collective's United Still Grant for Second Sunday.

Her recent past works include the 2024 short film, New Hire, vocals/movement/lyrics with the Afro-Surrealist collective, Zo//Ra, movement/vocals with the Participatory Music Coalition, as well as solo works in support of Angel Bat Dawid, Ayako Kato, Honey Pot Performance, and other Chicago based artists. She worked as a special effects make-up artist on  the set of Searching For Isabelle, Brujos, Bring the Beat Back, FCK Yes, and more. Her experimental dance film, Ambivert has screened at Black Cinema House, The Petty Biennial, and Silver Screen Sundays and can be viewed today on OTV’s website. In 2023, Aquarius partnered with The Healing Academy to present two iterations of Ancestor Fest, Chicago's first grief support festival and workshop series. Aquarius' mission is to create works of art and community programming that inspires folks to seek creative ways to manage the mental, physical and spiritual effects of global colonization.

Clementino Junior is a filmmaker, doctoral student in education, audiovisual educator and founder of CAN - Cinema Club Atlântico Negro.

His film Trem do Soul follows the timeline tracing a memorial and affective cartography of a young, black, and peripheral movement that stirred hearts, bodies, minds, and even military uniforms in the 1970s in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro.

Trem do Soul follows the timeline tracing a memorial and affective cartography of a young, black, and peripheral movement that stirred hearts, bodies, minds, and even military uniforms in the 1970s in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro.

I was born in 1993 and raised in Kenya.
In 2010 I moved to Germany where I am currently living and working.

My early fascination for animation, documentaries and science fiction awakened a deep enthusiasm about the diverse possibilities of expression through the medium of Film and Video.

Abstract imagery and language is what I like to tackle when working in the field of digital media. Just like the very old Elders in my family, my Mentors(Great Grandparents and Grandparents) did, by telling us stories around the fire.