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Bernard Nicolas

Bernard Nicolas

History

Bernard Nicolas has written and directed a number of films, including documentaries and short videos. Born in Port-au-Prince, he and his family fled from the political situation in Haiti and immigrated to San Pedro, California. The political upheaval he sensed as a student led Nicolas to become co-National Coordinator of the National Association of Black Students. He obtained his B.A. in Economics at UCLA, where he also earned an M.F.A. in Film and Television Production. His works include social issue documentaries such as Boat People and Breast Cancer: A Village Dialogue. The latter film was selected as a finalist for the Beacon Award from the Cable TV Public Affairs Association. Nicolas also wrote and directed Daydream Therapy (1977), a short film that earned him the Leigh Whipper Gold Award from the Philadelphia International Film Festival. In the early 1980s, Nicolas moved to Zimbabwe, where he worked in their production services department. In 1992, he founded Inter-Image Video, the first enterprise to commercially release African Cinema on home video in the U.S. He has also served various roles for numerous independent films. In addition to his contributions to film, he continues to pursue his interests in writing, photography and psychotherapy.

Profile

Bernard Nicolas

Movies

Daughters of the Dust

Daughters of the Dust

Associate Producer

In 1902, an African-American family living on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina prepares to move to the North.

Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space

Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space

Cinematography

Shopping Bag, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space explores nine Los Angeles based artists reflecting on ritual in their life and art. Artist David Hammons discusses the role of chance and improvisation in his work while working on sculpture on a waste site while N’Senga Nengudi talks about staging her performances in freeway underpasses. Spanning performance to spoken word, environmental sculpture to music each artist talks about how ritual and cultural traditions informs their work. This experimental essay intercuts interviews, documentation and photographs with the music of Don Cherry seeking to adjust the criteria and language used to talk about artists of colour.

Gidget Meets Hondo

Gidget Meets Hondo

Filmed in response to the LAPD’s shooting of Eulia Love in 1979, Gidget Meets Hondo opens with stills taken by Bernard Nicolas of a demonstration against Love’s killing. Nicolas’ Gidget is a self-absorbed young white woman who remains clueless to the violence erupting around her, ultimately to her own peril. The film asks whether such police brutality would be tolerated if the victim were a middle-class white woman.

Gidget Meets Hondo

Gidget Meets Hondo

Director

Filmed in response to the LAPD’s shooting of Eulia Love in 1979, Gidget Meets Hondo opens with stills taken by Bernard Nicolas of a demonstration against Love’s killing. Nicolas’ Gidget is a self-absorbed young white woman who remains clueless to the violence erupting around her, ultimately to her own peril. The film asks whether such police brutality would be tolerated if the victim were a middle-class white woman.

Director Melvonna Ballenger’s Rain (Nyesha) shows how awareness can lead to a more fulfilling life. In the film, a female typist goes from apathetic to empowered through the help of a man giving out political fliers on the street. Using John Coltrane’s song “After the Rain,” Ballenger’s narration of the film meditates on rainy days and their impact. The rain in this short film doesn’t signify defeat, but offers renewal and “a chance to recollect, a cool out.”

Daydream Therapy

Daydream Therapy

Editor

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

Daydream Therapy

Daydream Therapy

Cinematography

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

Daydream Therapy

Daydream Therapy

Producer

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

Daydream Therapy

Daydream Therapy

Writer

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

Daydream Therapy

Daydream Therapy

Director

Daydream Therapy is set to Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of “Pirate Jenny” and concludes with Archie Shepp’s “Things Have Got to Change.” Filmed in Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey by activist-turned-filmmaker Bernard Nicolas as his first project at UCLA, this short film poetically envisions the fantasy life of a hotel worker whose daydreams provide an escape from workplace indignities. —Allyson Nadia Field

Director

After being jailed by the Macoutes for complaining about worker exploitation at the baseball factory where he worked, a Haitian man and his family attempts to escape to the United States. On the boat, they are forced into the ocean at gunpoint far from the Florida coast, causing the man’s wife and his infant son to drown. The man is saved by an elderly couple, once illegal immigrants themselves. The couple helps the man to bury his son at sea and to gain entry to the United States.