On Tuesday, Ms. Hamd’s class was visited by Washington Latin parent Mr. Hans Charles, a film professor at George Mason University who was the cinematographer for Ava DuVernay’s “13th.” He spoke to the World History II class on the making of “13th” and his family’s Haitian heritage. The movie explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. The 2016 documentary evalutes race, justice and mass incarceration and is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which freed the slaves and prohibited slavery, except as a punishment for a crime. He spoke about Haitian culture, food, language and history to enrich the class’s unit on the Haitian Revolution. He also spoke about cinematography, specifically documentary film making and the use of light to help tell the story.
Class Cinematographer
