Emmanuel Adjei

Emmanuel Adjei is an acclaimed film director, writer, and visual artist, whose work has explored the realms between film, music video, and art installation. With a primary interest in storytelling, Adjei's work interrogates concepts of power, freedom, displacement, and inequality, told through his multi-layered dramatic narratives. Creating atmospheric worlds in both a painterly and cinematic style, Adjei always seeks to challenge the boundaries between fiction and reality. Adjei's work has been nominated for a Grammy, is screened at Academy and Bafta qualifying festivals around the world, and 2020 saw the announcement of Emmanuel's contribution as a creative collaborator, film director, and visual-effects director to Beyoncé's Black Is King, which had its successful premiere on Disney Plus, receiving widespread critical acclaim. Adjei's career has been marked by collaborations with a variety of recording artists such as Madonna, Beyoncé, Mark Pritchard, and Mykki Blanco. His short film The Formula (2016) and music video Human (2016) for Sevdaliza, has been hailed by critics, and his most prominent mind-bending short film Shahmaran (2018) received widespread critical acclaim, numerous awards and nominations at the UK Music Video Awards, D&AD, Young Director Award, Camerimage, Kinsale Shark Awards, Epica Awards, Shots Awards, Creative Circle Awards, Ciclope Awards, and Le Club des Directeurs Artistiques. In line with the success of his prior work, his distinct visuals for Madonna's Dark Ballet (2019), and Batuka (2019), has been praised by the likes of The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian, Variety, NME, and Billboard. Adjei holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Utrecht School of the Arts (NL) and went further to study Film at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (BE).