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Wilbert Reuben ("Skip") Norman (December 22, 1933 - March 18, 2015) was a Black American filmmaker, visual anthropologist, and educator.

Biography and career

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Skip Norman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1933, and went to high school at Dunbar High School in Washington, DC.[1]

Beginning in 1966, he joined the inaugural class of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), from which he graduated in 1969.[2] As a student, he closely collaborated with a number of fellow students on films, including those of Harun Farocki.[3] Three of his films, Strange Fruit, On Africa, and Washington DC November 1970 were broadcast on the WDR “Filmredaktion” (film unit of the West German Broadcasting channel) in 1971 and 1972.[4]

In 1979, he was the cinematographer for Wilmington 10 — U.S.A. 10,000 directed by Haile Gerima.[5] Haile Gerima described his choice to use Norman as a cinematographer thusly: "I know when I asked him to do the cinematography part of the 'Wilmington Ten,' it was out of his still photography work that I found impressive. That’s how I knew he would be the one to shoot the film."[6]

Norman later obtained a PhD from The Ohio State University in 1984. From 1996 to 2010, he taught in the Eastern Mediterranean University's Faculty of Communication and Media Studies in Cyprus.[7][8] He published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Visual Anthropology.[9]

Norman died in Washington, DC, in 2015.[10]

Films

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Recent 2023 retrospectives at the US National Gallery of Art and Open City Documentary Festival in London have highlighted his pioneering body of work of documentary and experimental films that looked at issues such as structural racism, Marxism, and inequality.[11] The premiere of the digitization of his On Africa was the subject of a lecture and screening sponsored by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in 2021 and again further expanded in 2023, which explored his films through the lens of "Decolonial activism, cinema, visibility."[12][13] In 2021, his film On Africa was also the subject of a keynote session at the international scholarly conference on documentary film and media Visible Evidence.[14]

His filmography in which he served in different roles includes:[15]

  • Situationen (Situations) (1967)
  • Brecht die Macht der Manipulateure (Break the Power of the Manipulators, 1967–68)[16]
  • Blues People (1968)
  • Cultural Nationalism (1969)
  • Strange Fruit (1969), his DFFB thesis film[17]
  • On Africa (1970), which was shown at the 1970 Festival of Mannheim[18]
  • Washington D.C. November 1970 (1970)
  • Blackman’s Voluntary Army of Liberation (1970)
  • Wilmington 10 — U.S.A. 10,000 (1979)
  • But Then She's Betty Carter (1980)
  • Spirit to Spirit: Nikki Giovanni (1986)

References

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  1. ^ "Black and White, Unite! Unite! / B / 03 / Rosa Mercedes / Harun Farocki Institut". Retrieved 2023-10-05.
  2. ^ "Skip Norman | DFFB". dffb-archiv.de. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
  3. ^ Gerhardt, Christina; Abel, Marco, eds. (2019-04-22). Celluloid Revolt: German Screen Cultures and the Long 1968. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. doi:10.2307/j.ctvb4bw8v.9. ISBN 978-1-78744-483-6. JSTOR j.ctvb4bw8v. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  4. ^ "Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) / Contexts / 03 / Rosa Mercedes / Harun Farocki Institut". Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  5. ^ Safford, Tony; Triplett, William (1983). "Haile Gerima: Radical Departures to a New Black Cinema". Journal of the University Film and Video Association. 35 (2): 59–65. ISSN 0734-919X. JSTOR 20686943.
  6. ^ "Remembering Skip Norman / B / 03 / Rosa Mercedes / Harun Farocki Institut". Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  7. ^ "EMU Faculty of Communication and Media Studies Mourns Dr. Skip Norman | News". Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Cyprus. 2015-03-19. Retrieved 2023-10-05.
  8. ^ "DAÜ Skip Norman için yasta". YENİDÜZEN (in Turkish). 2015-03-19. Retrieved 2023-11-06.
  9. ^ Norman, Wilbert Reuben (17 May 2010). "Photography as a research tool". Visual Anthropology. 4 (2): 193–216. doi:10.1080/08949468.1991.9966560. ISSN 0894-9468.
  10. ^ "EMU Faculty of Communication and Media Studies Mourns Dr. Skip Norman | News". Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Cyprus. 2015-03-19. Retrieved 2023-11-13.
  11. ^ "Skip Norman: Here and Now". www.nga.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-27.
  12. ^ "ON AFRICA". S A V V Y Contemporary. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
  13. ^ "Lecture and screening: Skip Norman: Decolonial activism, cinema, visibility". Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  14. ^ "Visible Evidence 2021 Keynote Address SKIP NORMAN'S "ON AFRICA"".
  15. ^ "Skip Norman: Here and There". Open City Documentary Festival. Retrieved 2023-10-27.
  16. ^ Koutsourakis, Angelos (2018-10-02). Rethinking Brechtian Film Theory and Cinema. doi:10.1515/9781474418911. ISBN 9781474418911. S2CID 248018851.
  17. ^ Griffith, Karina (2021-01-01). "Bearing Breasts, Not Arms: Black Femininity In The Films Of Skip Norman". Rosa Mercedes, the Online Journal of the Harun Farocki Institut.
  18. ^ "1970". 1970. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
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