M. Asli Dukan

M. Asli Dukan is an American independent media producer, filmmaker and visual artist based in Philadelphia working with themes of speculative fiction and Afrofuturism.

Early life M. Asli Dukan was born in Newark, New Jersey and has spent most her life living in New York City, where her Caribbean family immigrated to in the early 20th century. Dukan credits her family and childhood for influencing her focus on merging the Black radical tradition in her speculative fiction films and visual art.

Education

M. Asli Dukan has a Media and Communication Arts Master of Fine Arts from the City College of New York awarded in 1999 and a film production Bachelor of Arts from New Jersey City University in 1997. Filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira was one of her professors.

Career Dukan is faculty at the Community College of Philadelphia. She has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of the Arts and at the City College of New York.

Dukan says she "embraces the futuristic, fantastic and imaginary genres of speculative fiction (SF) as a way to explore the possibilities of social transformation in society." She has written, produced and directed several short SF films that have screened in film festivals across the country, the Newark International Film Festival, the ImageNation Film and Music Festival, the Langston Hughes Film Festival and the Blackstar Film Festival. She has contributed to a scholarly edited volume about Afrofuturism and its trends in multiple media. Through her production company she has directed and produced short speculative fiction films, as well as videos for indie artists and arts organizations. at the Icebox Project Space, a contemporary arts and culture venue in Philadelphia.

In 2018 Dukan was a judge for the Glyph Comic Awards.

Filmography They Say… (Short) (2024) Sundown Road (Short) (2022) Philly Education Stories (Short) (2022) Invisible Universe (Expected) (2020) Memories from the Future (Short) (2019) Resistance: the Battle of Philadelphia (Web series) (2018) Leeway Foundation – Art and Change Grant, 2016 The City University of New York Fellowship, 2014 Leeway Foundation – Art and Change Grant, 2014 Kitchen Table Giving Circle Grant, 2012 Urban Artist Initiative Grant, 2009