Ishmael Annobil is a London-based poet, filmmaker, journalist, emblemist and digital composer. Born in Accra, Ghana, in 1958, Ishmael started writing poetry at the age of 11, and entered journalism soon after high school. He has directed several keynote art documentaries, including Hornsleth: Product of Love, Kenji Yoshida: Artist of the Soul; and In the Presence of Awe: The Transvangarde. He is currently filming Choreographing the Page, a definitive documentary on Linda Karshan, one of America’s greatest minimalist artists. His surreal fictional feature, Salamander Walks, is currently in post, and his forthcoming fictional films include Icarus, and Drosophila, a psychological thriller. He has lived in Sudan and Kenya, where he performed his acclaimed poetry show, Criers on the Thresholds of Reality. He is the founder of the Welsh poetry festival, Iolo’s Children, and Wales’ first serious arts journal, Circa21 Newspaper.
A master photographer, and pioneer of important low-light techniques, Ishmael’s photography has been published in prominent publications, including The Independent Newspaper, and the prestigious French magazine M3. Anthologised in Another English: Anglophone Poems from Around the World (The Poetry Foundation, America, 2014), Ishmael has published two books of poetry namely Seven Horn Elegy and Ethiop, one monograph of Gadangme emblems, Abetei, a photographic monograph, Insomnia, and one music album, Zingliwu. He is also the founder/editor of online art and design journal Chiaroscuro Magazine, and founder/Producer of Stonedog Productions, a London-based film collective. Ishmael attended Christian Methodist Secondary School (Ghana), studied Social Anthropology extramurally at Goldsmith’s College, London, and undertook a PgDip in Visual Communications at West Herts College.