Documentarian Videographer

Kavena Hambira MFA Graduate UC Berkeley

My website KAVKAVILIER

Kav has volunteered as a Videographer for the Love Not Blood Campaign since 2014. His video and film work helps impacted families:

  • Document key events 
  • Produce historical archives
  • Control their narrative

My latest documentary ” The People’s Uncle”

My work draws from both individual and collective histories and moves through various forms such as video, film, non-fiction writing and site specific installations. 
 

As an African man living in the diaspora, I’m interested in using the poetics of film to ask political questions and provide opportunities for the exchange of public opinion. This approach cuts directly into my efforts to surface caveats that have been suppressed by dominant narratives. Specific bodies of work explore broad themes that expose the nuances, parallels, contradictions and ubiquity of Blackness.

 Current work in progress finds me questioning the agency of my subjects. I imagine producing work that steers away from cliché activism, yet says ‘something new’. This allows me to document and converse with the subject without seeming anthropological. Connecting my individual and collective histories inherently makes my work autobiographical. Through visual images, performance and multiple screen installations, I’m creating a visual language that not only resists the erasure of history, but rather encourages the viewer to think critically about these dominant narratives.
 
 

The People’s Uncle Documentary

After the murder of his nephew Oscar Grant by a BART police officer in 2009, Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson emerged as a national social justice activist. At the forefront of the struggle to end police violence in the United States, the story of “The People’s Uncle”– his journey and his work with families affected by similarly brutal experiences– is told in this moving documentary by Namibian filmmaker Kavena Hambira.

The People's Uncle from Kavena Hambira on Vimeo.