Awards 2024

THE CENTRE FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS CEREMONY

Join us in honoring film and television artists and activists Charles Dumas and Ayoka Chenzira and celebrate our filmmakers who win our jury awards. The evening is hosted by ENIGMA and Elaine Wilgus, and features local bites, music and performance artists. The Lifetime Achievement Award will honor Charles Dumas, a Professor Emeritus from Penn State University where he was the first African American to receive tenure in the School of Theatre. The Chandler Living Legacy Award will honor Pennsylvania native Ayoka Chenzira, an exemplary director in film and television, who is one of the first African American women to write, produce and direct a 35mm feature film.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17 at 6:00PM
AT THE STATE THEATRE IN STATE COLLEGE

AYOKA CHENZIRA

Meet Ayoka Chenzira, the multi-talented and award-winning filmmaker, Emmy and NAACP-nominated director, and digital media artist.

As a child, Ayoka discovered her interest in storytelling while listening to women converse in her mother’s Philadelphia beauty parlor. With a background in modern dance, photography, and music, she discovered her passion for filmmaking after being taken to every age-inappropriate movie that her cinephile parent could find. Since then, Ayoka has become known for working across a range of genres, including drama, science fiction, documentary, animation, and interactive cinema. As an actor’s director, Ayoka’s visionary style of storytelling and character development takes center stage, as does her ability to elevate a story both emotionally and visually.

Ayoka’s indie films highlight stories about Black women, have been exhibited at film festivals worldwide, and acquired by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is one of the first African American women to write, produce, and direct a 35mm feature film, Alma’s Rainbow, which was recently restored by the Academy Film Archive, The Film Foundation, and Milestone Films.

As a self-taught stop-motion animator and digital media artist, Ayoka has used these techniques to explore American history and concepts related to identity and standards of beauty for Black women.

In 2018, her animated film Hair Piece was one of twenty-five films inducted into the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress, along with Jurassic Park, The Shining, and Brokeback Mountain. Her film, Zajota & the Boogie Spirit, was one of the first to use frame-by-frame video blended with cell and computer animation, earning her the Sony Innovator Award.

Ayoka’s television career began when Ava DuVernay invited her to direct episodes of OWN’s hit family drama Queen Sugar, starring Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lien Gardner, and Kofi Siriboe. Her work on the series earned her an NAACP nomination. Ayoka continued to build her television repertoire, drawing on her extensive filmmaking background for projects like the CBS reboot of Dynasty, starring Elizabeth Gillies and Grant Show.

Selected by Sony/Amazon as one of four directors, Ayoka took on the sports comedy-drama A League of Their Own, an adaptation of Penny Marshall’s beloved film, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Blending history and science fiction, Ayoka directed the FX series Kindred, an adaptation of Octavia Butler’s acclaimed novel. In collaboration with historians, she crafted visual representations of culture and intimidation, introducing innovative elements that enhanced the series’ narrative.

A lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy, Ayoka directed the Spectrum/AMC psychological thriller Beacon 23 in 2022, based on Hugh Howey’s novel and starring Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) and Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk). Her episode was filmed entirely across four sound stages and featured significant visual effects and face replacements for body doubles. Working alongside a choreographer, she developed a unique sign language, and with composers Ramin Djawadi (Pacific Rim, Iron Man) and William Marriott (Westworld, Jack Ryan), she co-created chants sung by a space-based community of rebels.

In addition to her film and television work, Ayoka served as the Division Chair for the Arts at Spelman College, where she established the first majors in documentary filmmaking, photography, and dance performance & choreography at an HBCU.

CHARLES DUMAS

Charles Dumas is a Professor Emeritus from Penn State University’s School of Theatre, notable for being the first African American to achieve tenure in the department and for directing Raisin in the Sun as the first African American play on the PSU mainstage. Dumas is a versatile professional actor, writer, and director, with over 400 plays, films, and TV shows to his name. Among his many accolades, he holds an ensemble Emmy award for Separate But Equal, three AUDELCO nominations, and the best actor award from the Hollywood/Beverly Hills NAACP. Recognized as a “Living Legend” by the International Black Theatre Festival, Dumas currently appears as James Deuville on Tyler Perry’s All The Queen’s Men, Counterman in How Not To Die Alone, Judge Nelson in The Crowded Room, and Rev. Wilson in the upcoming A Complete Unknown.

His musical Blues Are The Roots: The Willie Dixon Story, which tells the story of his uncle, was recently showcased at the Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, and is under consideration for a NYC production and feature film. Another of his works, 911/A Day In The Life Of A People, was selected for the tenth-anniversary commemoration at The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Additionally, his play Sankofa/Katrina was presented at the University of New Orleans and LSU in remembrance of Hurricane Katrina. A 2002 Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, Dumas researched the “Theories of Theatre and Practical Theatre Skills; The African Roots of African American Theater.” His play Osazie Osage was produced locally in memory of Osazie Osage.

Dumas has been an active civil and human rights advocate for over sixty years, with the last thirty dedicated to State College. He was the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Congress in 2012 and has held roles including president of the UNA of Centre County, chair of the State College Borough Human Relations Commission, and member of the Planning Commission and MLK Plaza Planning Committee. He currently serves on the Borough’s Commission for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and is an election day official.

He attended the 1963 March on Washington, witnessing Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and was later a COFO organizer during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. A former Hendler Fellow at the American Film Institute, he also holds a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. Dumas writes a weekly column for the Centre Daily Times titled Under The Baobab. He resides with his wife of over fifty years, Dr. J. Ann Dumas.