If you do not know that there is an exploding African film industry that is second to Bollywood & tops Hollywood in the number of films produced every year, then you need to get out from under your local rock & get a little more global. While there is huge buzz around African films being made by African filmmakers on the continent, there is a new generation of Africans making films who are following in the footsteps of great internationally renown filmmakers from Africa like Haile Gerima, writer, producer & director of the award winning internationally acclaimed  film Sankofa.

These new generation filmmakers are western trained & often western born filmmakers who have taken on the mantle of telling the stories of Africa & Africans from history, to drama, to documentaries, to animation & even sci-fi thrillers. There is a long history of African filmmaking in all genres that seems to be forgotten in an era where Nollywood’s straight to DVD soap opera style stories are driving what the world considers the African film industry. These new young filmmakers refuse to be pigeonholed & are creating for the type of big box office success that brings the experience of  going to the theater back to Africa & to the rest of the world by sharing their unique perspective through their global fusion.

One of these new generation global African filmmakers is Sam Kessie, a London born,Ghana raised & now Atlanta residing writer/director/producer/set designer and all around film creator, who has done it all from the bottom up into an award winning filmmaker taking on the daunting & epic task of telling the story of one of Africa’s sports heroes,Azumah Nelson AKA The Professor! After football, most African nations are extremely passionate to the depths of their soul about boxing & no African nation has cultivated Africa’s globally historic standing in the world of boxing more than Ghana,West Africa & its main boxing hub town of Bukom- home of the Muhammad Ali of not just Ghana but of  the entire continent of Africa- home of the man who is affectionately known as “Zoom Zoom- The Professor”.

Sam Kessie has courageously put on the boxing gloves to a golden globes championship as the sole woman amongst giant men producing the  documentary film “Zoom Zoom -The Professor”, covering the historical career & rise of a young man from the boisterously tough quaint fishing town of Bukom, located in Ghana’s capital of Accra. Azumah Nelson put African boxing on the map KO after KO & became an international superstar with an entire continent behind him as he became the only African to have ever been inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame. In yet another black star move to be the first in setting their own standards & paving their own paths, Sam Kessie who has been chosen to be part of National Geographic’s “2011 Women Hold Up The Sky Series”  featuring films by trailblazing female filmmakers, has added an educational element to the documentary entitled Zum Zum: The Career of Azumah Nelson, which is being toured nationally in places like the National Geographic Center in Washington, DC on April 2,2011, to educate the world about the life of Azumah Nelson beyond boxing.

Azumah Nelson holds his title of “The Professor” to heart as he has made it his life’s mission to educate the children of  the black star nation of Ghana, West Africa. The Azumah documentary project started as a piece to help bring awareness to the Azumah Nelson Foundation in conjunction with his children’s book to raise 23 million dollars(USD) to build an educational sports complex for underprivileged children in Akuse, Ghana. This entire documentary project came together with the aid of Geodrill showing that corporations & artists can work together toward the betterment  & social responsibility in supporting, preserving & serving the culture of a nation, along with fans & supporters donating time, money, footage, music & whatever they could to bring the story to life about a man who is bigger than life to most Africans, whom he has inspired not only through his globally recognized accomplishments, but also through his compassion & dedication to continue to give back to his nation & to Africa as a whole. Today hip-hop artists from Africa name check him in their rap songs & young boxers from Bukom like Joshua Clottey who has garnered international fame, fight in his name  & shadow because he paved the path to respecting the strength, power & intelligence of the African fighter. This deeply rooted love for Azumah Nelson is what brought Sam Kessie back to Ghana as a modern day griot utilizing the medium of film to continue to tell & pass down the stories of Africa’s greatness to the next generation.

“I hope this leads to distribution for him in the future, but this being for such an honorable non-profit cause, I hope it gets a chance to circulate around, hopefully in the festival circuit. I hope people who normally wouldn’t consider watching a boxing story of a young man from a little coastal African nation who believed his destiny was to become a King amongst Kings fulfilling his destiny beyond anyone’s expectations as he rose amongst the greatest, would get the opportunity to do so.” Sam Kessie

>via: http://globalfusionproductions.com/fbl/global-fusion-playlist-the-movies-ones...

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Movie maker Sam Kessie

talks about her Zoom Zoom documentary

>via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8bekjKYt1Q