Bernard Nicolas is an Haitian actor, producer and director. Born in Port-au-Prince, he escaped the political situation in Haiti with his family and settled in San-Pedro, California. There, Nicolas became a co-National Coordinator of the National Association of Black Students, driven to its political responsibility.
The filmmaker obtained a B.A. in Economics at UCLA before enrolling in its M.F.A. in Film and Television Production. He would be considered part of the movement L.A. Rebellion, also known as ‘Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers’: a generation of filmmakers from the 60s to the 80s of UCLA, creators of a revolutionary Black Cinema diverging from Hollywood conventions and attentive to the real african-american lived experiences. His works include social issue documentaries such as Boat People (1982) and Daydream Therapy (1977), where Nicolas’ personal care for mental health as a licensed therapist. Nicolas also won the Leigh Whipper Gold Award from the Philadelphia International Film Festival.
He has worked in cinema production in Zimbabwe, where he moved in the 80s. In 1992, he also founded Inter-Image Video, the first enterprise to commercially release African Cinema on home video in the U.S. His work is still being exhibited internationally, in venues such as Tate Modern Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Toronto International Film Festival Cinematheque, and the Harvard Film Archive.
