Screening and Conversation: Mamadou Dia with Raven Jackson

Join artists Mamadou Dia and Raven Jackson for a film screening and conversation. This event is co-presented with the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies. The screening will be followed by a discussion and Q&A.

Film Screening
6:30—9 PM, Theater, Lower Level

Mamadou Dia is a filmmaker who has written and directed award-winning fiction films and documentaries based on his experience growing up in Senegal. A NYU Tisch MFA graduate, he debuted in 2016 with his short Samedi Cinema, which premiered at Venice and Toronto Film Festival. His first feature, Baamum Nafi (2019), which explored the life of an imam and father in Northern Senegal, won the Best First Feature Award at Locarno and was Senegal’s official Oscar entry, screening at over 80 festivals worldwide. His second feature, Demba (2024), premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and examines grief and indigenous mental health practices in Senegal. Both features had theatrical release in Senegal. A Guggenheim and Creative Capital Fellow, Mamadou is currently developing his third feature, Augustus, inspired by the life of 19th-century African-American daguerreotypist Augustus Washington who opened in 1860 the first documented studio in Saint Louis of Senegal. In 2025, he became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Raven Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker, poet, and photographer from Tennessee. Her work often explores landscapes of indefinable experiences and emotions, intimacy, connection, and the body’s relationship to nature. Recently nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director, Jackson's debut narrative film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, made in partnership with Tender, PASTEL, and A24, world-premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and was named one of the top ten movies of the year by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and RogerEbert.com. The film has screened at the New York Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, San Sebastián International Film Festival, BFI London, AFI Fest, and more. A featured artist on Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, Jackson was recently named a 2026 United States Artists Fellow and a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow.

This event is part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).