Sabaah Folayan

Sabaah Folayan is an American filmmaker and activist. Her debut documentary feature, Whose Streets?, on the 2014 Ferguson protests, premiered in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

Early life Raised by her mother, musician and visual artist Waberi, Folayan grew up in South Central Los Angeles, for middle school and high school After graduating from Marlborough in 2009, She was also a student-athlete and pursued writing and theater in her free time. The film received favorable reviews from critics, noting achievements in directing. In The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman gave the film five stars and praised Folayan and Davis's directorial choice to make a "tremendous end run around mainstream news outlets and the agenda-driven narratives that emerge, particularly on television" by not using "images...leaked by law enforcement or stage managed for the media, but [which] come directly from the people who lived through the violent events of 2014." In The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney said Folayan's "raw connection to the material informs the film's entire approach, investing it with an urgency that never lets up." Reviewing the film for IndieWire, Jude Dry described "Folayan's presence [as] hardly seen, but can be felt in the easy shorthand her subjects use on camera. They have much to say and do so urgently, without fear of being misinterpreted. For comparison, Folayan’s interviews stand in stark contrast to the ones conducted by mainstream media outlets (and their largely white interviewers) she chooses to show."

In February 2017, Magnolia Pictures purchased the project for distribution, planning a summer release commemorating the anniversary of Brown's death. The film opened in theaters August 11, 2017.

Look at Me

On February 2, 2022, it was announced that Folayan would be the director for the 2022 documentary, Look at Me, about the late rapper and singer XXXTentacion. It was released on Hulu on May 26, 2022.

Other projects and influences Folayan was a lead organizer of the New York City Millions March, Folayan has said her experience in Ferguson was pivotal in teaching her organizing skills, that the work should extend beyond attending demonstrations to include "going to meetings, creative acts, and long-term strategies."

Awards and accolades In developing Whose Streets?, Folayan was selected for the Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab, its Music & Sound Design Lab: Documentary, and its Creative Producing Summit. She also won support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Tribeca Film Institute.

In 2016, Folayan was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's Twenty Five New Faces of Independent Film and Independent Magazine 's 10 Filmmakers to Watch.

In 2017, Folayan was named the Vimeo Share the Screen Fellow at IFP's Made in NY Media Center.