Director Biography – Jamal Ademola

Jamal Ademola is a Nigerian-American artist & filmmaker whose work moves fluidly between cinema, advertising, and fine art. His storytelling blends live-action, animation, and documentary to create dazzling visual narratives that explore Black identity, memory, migration, and belonging.

His documentary work includes “House of Aama: Threads of Legacy” for PBS American Masters, supported by Firelight Media, and he is the creative director of “The Blind Couple from Mali”, a feature documentary on Grammy-nominated musicians Amadou & Mariam.

Jamal’s avant-garde films and installations have been exhibited widely in venues such as LACMA (2026), Black Harvest Film Festival (2025), Silicon Valley African Film Festival (2025), Albany Institute of History and Art (2025), African Film Festival NY (2025), Seattle Black Film Festival (2026, 2025), Wassaic Project (2024), DOC NYC (2024) , Images Festival (2024), PBS, Kala Art Institute, Black Cultural Archives in London, Alchemy Film & Arts (2023, 2022), The New School, and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center (2024).

He is currently directing “Pieces of You”, a romantic visual autoethnography, and “They Came from the Clouds”, a feature documentary supported by Comcast NBCUniversal, BAVC Media, PAM-CUT, and Kala Art Institute.

Film In competition 2026 -Hope

After doom-scrolling on social media, a young poet named Salome Agbaroji is thrust into a fantastic journey through a magical animated realm, where she encounters a majestic Black Crowned Crane.