Louis Massiah

Louis Massiah is a documentary filmmaker and the founder/director of Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, a media arts center that provides training and equipment access to community groups and the independent film/video community. His innovative approach to documentary filmmaking and community media have earned him numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship “genius grant” 1996-2001, two Rockefeller/Tribeca fellowships and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. 

His award-winning documentaries, The Bombing of Osage Avenue, W.E.B. Du Bois – A Biography in in Four Voices, two films for the Eyes on the Prize II series, and A is for Anarchist, B is for Brown, have been broadcast on PBS and screened at festivals and museums throughout the US, Europe and Africa. In 2011, he was commissioned to create a five channel permanent video installation for the National Park Service’s President’s House historic site.

Currently, Massiah is executive producing two major community oral history projects, the Precious Places Community History project, a video project designed by Massiah and composed of 73 short documentaries produced collaboratively with neighborhood organizations in Philadelphia and Chester, PA, as well as Camden, NJ.

A graduate of Cornell University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massiah has been a guest artist and visiting faculty member at Swarthmore College, Temple, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.

Louis Massiah, along with the Be the Media! artist/educators, have designed a workshop for community groups serious about creating something! During the workshop, we created a plan for a short video which shines light on your powers. Historians, media makers and musicians interested in helping to facilitate these projects are welcome!