2019 HAMMER GRANT FINALIST
About Zuri Obi, Finalist
Zuri Obi is a Haitian-American filmmaker based in New Orleans. Pushing against conventional forms of storytelling, Zuri and her team won Best Experimental Film at Blackstar Film Festival in 2018 and Indie Grits Film Festival in 2019 for co-creating Fucked Like A Star (2018). Her work, which focuses on women’s lives, the Pan African diasporic experience and meditations on nature, has screened at several festivals including BAMcinématek, Afrikana Independent Film Festival, Festival d’Automne á Paris and Edinburgh International Film Festival. Zuri was also a mentee of New Orleans Film Society’s ‘Emerging Voices’ program. Her current project, blood peach, is an experimental documentary supported by Tribeca Film Institute and Sundance Institute. The film is an exploration of oral history traditions in the American South.