Khary Saeed Jones Named 2021-22 FSC-LEF Fellow

Portrait of filmmaker Khary Saeed Jones

We are delighted to join the LEF Foundation in announcing that Khary Saeed Jones has been selected as the 2021-22 recipient of the Film Study Center-LEF Foundation Fellowship. Jones will work on his new film Night Fight, exploring the interior life of a man living while black in the United States as it seizes and convulses in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the racial reckoning catalyzed by the police killing of George Floyd, and the countdown to the most consequential election in the nation’s history. The film will observe his attempt over the course of one week to step out of the long shadow cast by his own experience with racial violence as he contemplates enacting one himself.

Khary Saeed Jones engages film projects that explore the tensions between fiction, memory, and everyday life.  His films and collaborations have screened at Sundance, SXSW, MoMA, Full Frame, ICA Boston, and many other festivals and venues.  As a writer-director, his narrative work includes the short films Hug, Three and a Half Thoughts, Chrysalis, and the forthcoming feature-length films Night Fight and Gumbo.  Jones has also served on the editorial teams behind the documentary features: Where the Pavement Ends (PBS WORLD Channel/America ReFramed, 2020), Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart (PBS/American Masters, 2018), He Named Me Malala (Fox Searchlight, 2015), Sembene! (Kino Lorber, 2015), and The World According to Dick Cheney (Showtime, 2013).

Born and raised in Camden, New Jersey, Jones is the recipient of awards, grants, and fellowships from AFI Dallas, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Sundance Institute.  He studied at Columbia University (MA, MFA) and Morehouse College (BA), and he is currently a Professor of the Practice in Drama and Film at Tufts University.  At Tufts, Jones teaches storytelling for the screen and advises students developing both scripted and documentary shorts from inception to edit.

The FSC-LEF Fellowship, open to Boston-area nonfiction filmmakers who are not currently affiliated with Harvard, aims to foster connections between Harvard filmmakers and those in the surrounding communities.  One filmmaker per academic year receives a $10,000 grant (jointly funded by FSC and LEF Foundation), access to FSC production and post-production equipment, and the opportunity to participate in the Harvard FSC community through work-in-progress screenings, workshops, and other activities.  Applications are accepted in the January round of the LEF Moving Image Fund production and post-production grant cycle.

We look forward to welcoming Khary into the FSC community for the academic year 2021-22!

Film Still from Night Fight

Film Still from Night Fight