Andrew Dosunmu

thumb|Mahen Bonetti Andrew Dosunmu at the 2025 New York African Film Festival 2 (cropped) Andrew Dosunmu is a Nigerian photographer and filmmaker who came to prominence in the United States after directing music videos for various artists including Isaac Hayes, Angie Stone, Common, Tracy Chapman, Wyclef Jean, Kelis, Aaron Neville, Talib Kweli, and Maxwell. He is the director of the 2011 drama film Restless City, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. His next film, 2013's Mother of George, also premiered at Sundance, and was the Closing Night selection for Maryland Film Festival 2013. Dosunmu lives between New York City and Lagos, Nigeria. Quotes I’ve always been very fascinated by wondering what it’s like before and after the picture I’m looking at was taken. I was a filmmaker who wanted to make films and pictures were secondary. cinema is a visual medium first and foremost, and that’s what I want to embrace. Photography plays a big part for me as a storyteller. Because photography is the story. I’m just trying to be respectful to the culture. Culture eats with their hands, cause they believe cutlery is just a distance between you and your food. To use your hand to feed yourself, it’s like going into the soul. If you really want to work with somebody, you want to explore their mind and you want to hear what they’ve got to say. I really wanted to convey what one experiences when you’re in the hustle of New York. I really wanted to play with depth of field, the foreground/background element, with the distances changing constantly. There’s always so much other stuff that distracts you from them. Monograph is a combination of works that I have done the past decade or two that comprises of photography, filmmaking and videomaking. A journey of my creative career. It’s a combination of all of that it’s a book of ideas, inspiration, what inspires me, rather than just a photography book. The book is a journey, you are not bound by borders. The book travels through too many contents without screaming where it is exactly. You would never realize they are different continents. This is where I come from and everything I do is shaped by here. My wish for a promised land is where I come from, and Lagos is where I come from. Nigeria is where I come from, and the continent of Africa is where I come from. Being an African who lives somewhere else, there's nowhere more promising than home. Spaces like Art X Lagos encourage young filmmakers and artists to embrace themselves and not necessarily look to the outer world for validation. It’s really about celebrating who we are, because for the last 100 years, our image has often been projected by someone else, and it's not in a positive light. I got into design and fashion because it was my way into the visual world. Photography was my scrapbook. It was this tool that made me record the things that I wanted to film and document. I am there to celebrate them and there is a trust that let’s them get their guard down. Celebration of life. Spirituality was prominent in every form. Working in Atelier Saint Laurent exposed me to the notion of research. The whole collection is about research. This life is about being championed. Having the rabbi. Everybody needs a rabbi. It’s been about the humanity we all have in common. We all have blood running through our veins. I became a filmmaker because I really wanted to represent the people I knew. The humor, the humanity, the love. Thats what I wanted to create in cinema. The world is not ours it’s just centered here. It’s about that global conversation. Nobody knows what you want to talk about better than you. You have that over anyone else. If you truly believe in yourself and what you want talk about that’s the golden key. As a visual artist there’s no boundary between them. They are all one. External links Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)