Carlos Javier Ortiz

Carlos Javier is a Guggenheim Award winning director, cinematographer and photographer who focuses on American cities, violence, and marginalized communities. Carlos 'current project, A Thousand Midnights, is one of a series of short films chronicling the contemporary experience of Black Americans who came to the North during the Great Migration. Beginning with his mother-in-law's story, Carlos explores the legacy of the Migration a century after it began. For Carlos, who moved back and forth between Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland as a child, the story of a displaced people in search of stability and economic opportunity resonates with his own. His work has been exhibited at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; the International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY; the Detroit Institute of Arts; and the Library of Congress. Carlos' photos have been published in the New Yorker, Mother Jones and the Atlantic, including the photos used to illustrate Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Case for Reparations (2014), which was the best selling issue in the history of the Magazine. His other film, We All We Got, conveys a community's deep sense of loss and resilience in the face of gun violence. We All We Got screened at the Tribeca and Los Angeles International Film Festivals and won best short documentary prize at the 2016 Crested Butte Film Festival. Carlos Javier has taught at Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Chicago and Oakland with his wife and frequent collaborator, Tina K. Sacks, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.