Topher Campbell

Afro-Queer Artist/Filmmaker Topher Campbell's output spans, film, theatre, performance, writing, and site-specific work. He makes bold and exciting work focusing on sexuality, masculinity, race, human rights, memoir and climate change. Former artistic director of The Red Room Film and Theatre Company in 2005 he was recipient of the Jerwood Directors Award and nominated for the 2011 What’s On Stage Theatre Event of the Year Award. In 2017 he was longlisted for the inaugural Spread the Word Life Writing Prize for his forthcoming memoir Battyman. In 2000 he co-founded rukus! Federation a Black Queer arts collective with photographer Ajamu X. This culminated in the internationally recognised rukus! Archive currently held in the London Metropolitan Archives. The rukus! Archive won the 2008 Landmark Archive Award. Topher’s films have appeared in festivals worldwide including his first film The Homecoming a meditation on art masculinity and sexuality, featuring commentary by Stuart Hall. His art film FETISH, a collaboration with 2014 Mercury Music Prize Winners. Young Fathers, is shot on the streets of New York. It was premiered at the Barbican Centre, London, Official Selection for the 2018 Aesthetica Short Film Festival and 2018 Scottish Queer International Film Festival and 2021 Sheffield DocFEST. Topher is Clore Fellow, a Patron of Switchboard and in 2017 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Sussex for his work in the Black LGBTQ+ community. As a performer Topher has appeared in Campbell X’s Stud Life, Ian Potier’s debut feature Oh Happy Day and starred in Isaac Julien’s Trussed. He co-directed Una Marson Our Last Caribbean Voice available on BBCiplayer. His latest film, Moments That Shaped Queer Black Britain is a documentary about UK Black Queer history and culture for B.E.T./Paramount streaming now in the UK.