Exit to Entry by Nandi Pointer

Exit to Entry: Black Expats in Asia & The Middle East paints a portrait of three Black American men who embark on a journey of self-discovery by enacting a form of fugitivity in deciding to leave the U.S. to work as English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the ROK. By living and working in contexts shape by U.S. wars and empire, these men embrace the unknown, challenging notions of race and identity, in order to live more free and expansive lives, far away from the violent ruptures of antiblackness that populate the U.S. visual landscape.

Artist Bio

Nandi Pointer is a PhD Candidate in the College of Media, Communication, and Information (CMCI) at CU Boulder. Her research program focuses on the cultural politics of race, diaspora, visual culture, and media. Specifically, her dissertation project combines writing and documentary filmmaking as a method to examine Black male identity formation in expats who leave the U.S. to work as English as Second Language (ESL) teachers in Asia and the Middle East. She directed and produced her first award winning documentary film Highway of Dreams (1999) at the UC Berkely Graduate School of Journalism. She holds an MJ from UC Berkeley and has produced content for Netflix, MTV, Fox, and TV One. Her written work has been published both in academic journals like Jump Cut and news magazines like The San Francisco Chronicle, Essence, and Upscale.