"One of the top film educators from around the globe"

Variety Magazine

"For nearly two decades, the San Antonio native (Ya’Ke) has been making films that grapple with race and social change"

The Texas Monthly

"25 screenwriters to watch"

Moviemaker magazine

Edwin

The Pandemic Chronicles

Brother

Dear Bruh

Dawn

Katrina’s Son

The Beginning and Ending of Everything

Wolf

Heavenly

Dear Bruh: A Eulogy. A Baptism. A Call to Action.

Read full article here

 

Ya’Ke Smith is the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication’s first Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, though for years he was a mainstay in Dallas’ film community. I first encountered Smith’s work when he screened his feature film Wolf at the Dallas International Film Festival in 2012. Wolf is a powerful and complex film about child abuse in a church and its effect on a family and a close-knit community. It has never really left me. Smith previously taught at the University of Texas at Arlington, and since Wolf, his short film “Dawn” made a splash on HBO and remained in rotation for a couple of years.

 

Yesterday, Smith alerted me his latest piece, called “Dear Bruh: A Eulogy. A Baptism. A Call to Action.” The short film, which you can watch below, is an elegy born of our current moment, a moving reflection on love and loss, racism and history, suffering and endurance. I won’t say more. The piece speaks for itself. Listen.

Dear Bruh: A Eulogy. A Baptism. A Call to Action.