OffBeat readers may recognize Jackson’s name from this year’s Best of the Beat Awards, when he took home the prize for Best Music Video Direction for Cha Wa’s “ Visible Means of Support (No Justice, No Peace) Remix.” Before relocating to D.C., he directed countless music videos for local talent such as PERK and wrote, directed, and produced films such as The Necromancer starring the late local legend Michael Martin of Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets. In the first several minutes, Smith tells us, “Culture is the intersection between life and death how you deal with it.” In the realm of New Orleans, Jackson, now a film graduate student at Howard University in D.C., uses culture and music as the ether that holds the Mardi Gras galaxy together, particularly when it comes to the Mardi Gras Indians and filmmaking. (known as Spyboy Fatman) and their mother, Tinice “Tee” Williams, the family matriarch who also executive produced the project. (Chief Black Hawk), his brothers Tyrell “Ty” Williams Jr., and Simeon Israel, Jr. Dripping in gorgeous cinematography and narration by Gian Smith, Big Chief, Black Hawk orbits around Terrence Williams, Jr. Jackson chooses to focus on a group of young men who have decided to follow in their ancestors’ footsteps. The documentary, set to premiere at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) next month, does not just revolve in the orbit of the old Mardi Gras Indian tradition. When talking about his documentary about the rich history of the Mardi Gras Indians, Big Chief, Black Hawk, the West Bank native starts off by saying that he is thrilled to tell the story of Black people from a Black local perspective. Jonathan Isaac Jackson is a filmmaker who is unabashedly unafraid to speak his mind.
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