Maysles Welcomes Kazembe Balagun,
Our New Executive Director
Maysles Documentary Center is pleased to announce that Kazembe Balagun, a dynamic force on New York City’s left intelligentsia scene, has been chosen as the new executive director at the Maysles Documentary Center, (MDC) the Harlem-based nonprofit organization committed to documentary film, education and community.
“Kazembe’s roots begin uptown and extend globally. His experience and vision fit the future vision of Maysles.” said Nelson Walker, former board chair and interim executive director, who will stay on at Maysles as development director. Experiences like Balagun’s most recent work prior to Maysles, as project manager at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York Office, where he focused on the international dimensions of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Right to the City and solidarity economy, have put him at the forefront of the power of the arts.
“What I love about the medium of film is the ability to galvanize audiences from viewers to activists,'' said Balagun. “125th Street has such a storied history of political activism and education. I hope to continue that tradition at Maysles, putting our already stellar film programming in conversation with local and global minded activists and scholars.”
Balagun assumed the role April 1st. He will direct the Maysles Documentary Center, including the education department and the storied microcinema in the heart of Harlem, New York City’s only indie movie house north of 96th Street.
“Being born and raised in Harlem, and living in The Bronx, this is like homecoming for me,” said Balagun, 48. “MDC is only a few blocks from the old Victoria 5 where I watched movies as a child.”
Balagun is a first generation Harlemite, the youngest child of Benjamin and Mildred Mitchell, who came to New York from Charleston, SC during the Great Migration. Balagun graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in The Bronx, and received a BA in Philosophy and Black/Puerto Rican Studies from Hunter College, where he was an activist with the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!)
In 2008, he came onboard as outreach coordinator for the Brecht Forum, a broadly anti-capitalist cultural space deep in the West Village. “That space was everything I thrived for: a big ecumenical community bent towards justice. Some nights we would host Slavoj Žižek and the next a feminist jazz trio. It trained my ear to perform deep listening.”
Balagun’s interest in film came as a member of Red Channels, a film collective that programmed out of the Brecht Forum, and collaborated on the “Contraband Film Series” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010.
Balagun curated “Black Solidarity in A Global Context” at Maysles Cinema and other venues in 2020. In 2024 he returned to Maysles as a guest programmer for a series “The Lafarague Clinic Remixed,” which excavated the history of the first mental health clinic in Harlem run entirely by volunteers.
“I am really amazed by how microcinemas in the cities have been responsive to movements like Black Lives Matter and the swing towards organizing,” Balagun shared, “I hope to continue that trend while building our collective ecosystem so we can support the arts and thrive deep into the 21st century.”
