Tanzania and USA / 2019 / 67mins / Documentary / Maasai and Swahili

While countless films depict Maasai livestock herders of East Africa as being in a race against time to preserve their iconic pastoralist lifestyle, Maasai Remix highlights members of the community championing cultural innovation in divergent settings. The documentary deftly interweaves the stories of Adam, Evalyne and Frank - three individuals who simultaneously pursue self-determination through varied strategies, introduce radical change to the status quo, and demonstrate tangible passion for their culture and way of life.

Kelly Askew

Kelly M. Askew is a Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican/African Studies. She received her B.A. in Music and Anthropology from Yale University (1988) and her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University (1997). Her publications include two edited volumes, African Postsocialisms (co-edited with M. Anne Pitcher, Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and The Anthropology of Media: A Reader (co-edited with Richard R. Wilk, Blackwell Publishers, 2002), articles on topics ranging from nationalism to gender relations to Hollywood film production, and a book on music and politics in Tanzania entitled Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Production in Tanzania (University of Chicago Press, 2002), a finalist for the 2003 African Studies Association Herskovits Award for best scholarly work on Africa. She has collaborated on several film projects including Poetry in Motion: 100 Years of Zanzibar's Nadi Ikhwan Safaa (2012) and Orkiteng Loorbaak: Rite of Elders (2017). Learn More

Ron Mulvihill

Active as a filmmaker, producer/director and editor for a variety of feature and documentary subjects, Ron Mulvihill is a multi-talented film/video maker and has a knack for bringing together talented individuals from around the world on international award-winning productions. He is a partner at Gris-Gris Films. His feature film, Maangamizi, the Ancient One (2000) continues to receive accolades after being selected as Tanzania’s official selection at the 74th Academy Awards. At Zanzibar’s International Film Festival, the film won Best Feature and Best Actress and also won the 2004 Paul Robeson Award for Best Feature Film. Mulvihill graduated with an MFA from the esteemed film school at UCLA. His work, much of it based on cultures in Africa, reflects cultural and spiritual elements around indigenous cultures. His film, The Marriage of Mariamu (1985), the first Tanzanian-American co-production, was a prominent Festival winner at FESPACO in 1985 having received the Best Short Film Award, the Organization of African Unity Award and the Journalists and Critics Award; it went on to win several more awards at Film Festivals in Europe and the U.S. Additionally, Mulvihill has produced three documentaries, We Are Still Here, Sharing Is Unity and Prince Dixon’s Gospel Caravan. Learn More