Clubhouse Conversations: Judas and the Black Messiah

In this 75-minute video, cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, BSC and interviewer Steven Fierberg, ASC discuss director Shaka King’s provocative period drama revealing the inside story behind the Black Panther Party movement of the 1960s, as a small-time criminal was manipulated by the FBI to infiltrate the organization’s Illinois chapter.

Recently premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Judas and the Black Messiah will be available in theaters and streaming on HBOMax starting February 12.

Hailing from Corpus Christi, Texas, Bobbitt gained early camera experience while shooting television news and documentaries, traveling around the globe, particularly in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Africa and Asia.

He began a long-running collaboration with director and video artist Steve McQueen on the shorts Western Deep, Charlotte, Gravesend, Static and Giardini. The two would have a breakthrough with the award-winning feature Hunger, followed by Shame and 12 Years a Slave. The filmmakers were recently interviewed by AC for their work on the gritty drama Widows.

Bobbitt’s other feature credits include the features The Place Beyond the Pines, The Killer Inside Me, Byzantium, Everyday, Oldboy, Kill the Messenger, Rock the Kasbah and The Rhythm Section (directed by Reed Morano, ASC).

His television work includes Sense and Sensibility, The Long Firm, The Canterbury Tales and the pilot to Game of Thrones.

Interviewer Steven Fierberg is an award-winning cinematographer whose feature credits include Secretary and Love & Other Drugs, while his extensive TV series credits include Entourage, Good Girls Revolt, The Affair, In Treatment and Emily in Paris. He currently serves as a vice president of the ASC.

You’ll find more episodes in this series here. 
Learn more about our new season here.