Adamu Chan

is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and community organizer from the Bay Area who started filmmaking while he was incarcerated inside of San Quentin State Prison. He produced numerous short films while incarcerated, using his vantage point and experience as an incarcerated person as a lens to focus the viewer’s gaze on issues related to social justice. In 2021, he was a recipient of the Docs in Action Film Fund through Working Films, and was tapped to produce and direct his film What These Walls Won’t Hold, which won Best Documentary Mid-Length at the 2023 San Francisco International Film Festival and broadcast nationally on PBS/America ReFramed. In 2022, Adamu directed a documentary short for the doc-series Bridge Builders, partnering with ITVS/Independent Lens, about Ny Nourn, a community member working at the intersections of immigration, incarceration, and gender justice. He is also a 2022 Stanford University Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity Mellon Arts Fellow, a 2023 Rockwood Institute JustFilms Documentary Leaders Fellow, a 2024 Wyncote Fellow, and a 2024 SFFILM House resident. In 2023, he joined Working Films Board of Directors. Adamu draws inspiration and energy from the voices of those directly impacted and seeks to empower them to reshape the narratives that have been created about them through film.