Osei Essed

Filmes

A King Like Me
Music
Follows members of the Zulu Club, New Orleans’ first Black Mardi Gras, as they work to bring the Zulu parade back to the streets for Mardi Gras Day 2022, in the face of a global pandemic, hurricane Ida and the loss of members due to COVID and gun violence.
Fragments of Paradise
Original Music Composer
For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema, documented his life in what came to be known as his diary films. From his arrival in New York City as a displaced person in 1949 to his death in 2019, he chronicled the trauma and loss of exile while pioneering institutions to support the growth of independent film in the United States. Fragments of Paradise is an intimate look at his life and work constructed from thousands of hours of his own video and film diaries-including never-before-seen tapes and unpublished audio recordings. It is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, and a man who tried to make sense of it all... with a camera.
Os Filhos do Katrina
Original Music Composer
Um olhar íntimo às consequências do furacão Katrina e seu impacto na juventude de Nova Orleans
Dear Mr. Brody
Original Music Composer
A documentary about Michael Brody Jr., a 21-year-old hippie millionaire who in 1970 promised to give away his $25M inheritance in an effort to usher in a new era of world peace.
Through the Night
Original Music Composer
When one’s sole focus is to provide for their children, the stakes are extremely high. The need for multiple jobs to make ends meet has become a common reality for many families in this country, which leads to a very important question: who looks after the children while their parents work? Through the Night examines the economic and emotional toll affecting some American families, told through the lens of a 24-hour daycare center in Westchester, New York. At the center of it all is Nunu, the primary caregiver and a hero to many families in need of a safe space to bring their children.
And So I Stayed
Music Score Producer
AND SO I STAYED is an award-winning documentary about survivors of abuse fighting for their lives and spending years behind bars. These women paid a steep price with long prison sentences, lost time with loved ones, and painful memories. Formerly incarcerated survivor-advocate Kim Dadou Brown, who met her wife while incarcerated, is a driving force in the passage of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA), a new law meant to prevent survivors from receiving harsh prison sentences for their acts of survival. Nikki Addimando, a mother of two young children, suffered the consequences when a judge didn’t follow the law’s guidelines. Tanisha Davis, a single mother who was ripped away from her son in 2013, is hopeful the new law is her way out of a harsh prison sentence.
How the Monuments Came Down
Music
How the Monuments Came Down is a timely and searing look at the history of white supremacy and Black resistance in Richmond. The feature-length film-brought to life by history-makers, descendants, scholars, and activists-reveals how monuments to Confederate leaders stood for more than a century, and why they fell.
The Big Scary “S” Word
Music
What do we talk about when we talk about socialism in the US? The Big Scary “S” Word explores the rich history of the American socialist movement and the people striving to build a socialist future today.
In Our Nature
Music
Moving from the country to the city, IN OUR NATURE is about the disconnection from the environment one experiences while in urban areas. Inspired by D.A. Pennebaker's DAYBREAK EXPRESS, the film takes the viewer on a road trip that encompasses quiet, rural back roads and swimming holes to the kaleidoscope center of New York.
Farewell Amor
Original Music Composer
Após 17 anos longe, a esposa e filha adolescente do imigrante angolano Walter finalmente se juntam a ele nos Estados Unidos. Agora completos estranhos, eles dividem um pequeno apartamento. Felizmente, descobrem um amor comum pela dança que pode ajudar a superar a distância emocional entre a família.
Bryan Stevenson: Luta Por Igualdade
Original Music Composer
O advogado Bryan Stevenson, do Alabama, defende os pobres, os excluídos e os encarcerados, em uma tentativa de erradicar a discriminação racial no sistema de justiça.
Accept the Call
Original Music Composer
Accept the Call charts a Muslim American family’s struggle against Islamic radicalisation. Through a series of calls from federal prison, Yusuf and his son examine and rebuild their understanding of their faith.
Always in Season
Original Music Composer
When 17-year-old Lennon Lacy is found hanging from a swing set in rural North Carolina in 2014, his mother's search for justice and reconciliation begins while the trauma of more than a century of lynching African Americans bleeds into the present.
A Girl Named C
Music
A sensitive examination of child sexual assault, based on the case of a girl who was raped in her New Jersey elementary school by another eleven-year-old student.
Absorvendo o Tabu
Original Music Composer
In an effort to improve feminine hygiene, a machine that creates low-cost biodegradable sanitary pads is installed in a rural village in Northern India. Using the machine, a group of local women is employed to produce and sell pads, offering them newfound independence and helping to destigmatize menstruation for all.
Things Break In
Original Music Composer
Things Break In is an intimate portrait of independence and love. Ida and Rosa work on a farm to support their families during wartime. Things Break In drops us into a unique circumstance that invites us to see what might happen when two women in 1940 are required to work together in privacy.
Tower
Original Music Composer
No dia primeiro de agosto de 1966 um atirador subiu no topo do prédio da Universidade do Texas e abriu fogo contra o local, deixando o campus refém por 96 minutos. Combinando imagens de arquivo e animação, o documentário revela histórias não contadas de testemunhas, heróis e sobreviventes do primeiro tiroteio em massa em uma escola norte-americana.
Jim: The James Foley Story
Original Music Composer
In August, 2014, a video of the public execution of American photojournalist James Foley rippled across the globe. Foley wore an orange jumpsuit as he knelt beside an ISIS militant dressed in black. That image challenged the world to deal with a new face of terror. And it tested one American family. Seen through the lens of filmmaker Brian Oakes, Foley’s close childhood friend, Jim takes us from small-town New England to the adrenaline-fueled front lines of Libya and Syria, where Foley pushed the limits of danger to report on the plight of civilians impacted by war.
Finders Keepers
Original Music Composer
In this documentary, recovering addict and amputee John Wood finds himself in a stranger-than-fiction battle to reclaim his mummified leg from Southern entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant, who found it in a grill he bought at an auction and believes it therefore to be his rightful property.
The Last Season
Original Music Composer
In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.