Katiana Weems-Ado

About

Katiana is an American cinematographer, director, and writer.

Her work is often rooted in temporal explorations of grief and mourning—its stickiness and porosity. The wake left by these emotions is a web, isolating and comforting in equal measure, and it is this duality, she finds, that translates uniquely well to the moving image.

As an educator, her pedagogical concerns reach past form and mode to focus on the collective affect of filmmaking. How do we create together and in service of what? Her curriculum urges both herself and her students to ask this question often, collectively, and urgently. Throughout her educational career, she has served as a curriculum writer and instructor for multiple film courses at Baltimore School of the Arts’ Film & Visual Storytelling department and as an adjunct professor at Towson University’s Electronic Film & Media department. Outside of permanent positions, she has facilitated film-based workshops focusing on cinematography, lighting, and animation. She encourages her students to develop the skills to communicate through film in ways that resonate with themselves and their communities.

While at the RCA, she developed Axiom24, a kinofuturist manifesto that formalizes her approach to filmmaking in pursuit of a truly collaborative and radically supportive industry. Through Axiom24, she seeks to encourage filmmakers to actively question the shortcomings of the film industry and to use circularly collaborative filmmaking practices to mend and care for practitioners, both contemporary and future.

Her commitment to innovative filmmaking has earned her recognition as a semi-finalist for the 2022 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize and a fellowship with the 2023 iteration of the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund.

Katiana’s passion for storytelling and dedication to a collaborative filmmaking process continue to drive her work. 

She is currently based in London.