Artel Great

Artel Great
Lecturing at the San Francisco Public Library in 2026
Born (1981-09-11) September 11, 1981
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Websitewww.artelgreat.com

Artel J. Great[1] (born September 11, 1981)[2] also known as Artel Kayàru, is an American actor, filmmaker, and Black film scholar.[3][4][5][6][7] He is known for portraying Rodney in the 2002 film Dahmer.[8][9][10][11]

Personal life

Great was born and raised in Chicago.[5][12][13]

He has been married since 2016; Nelsan Ellis was his best man at his wedding.[14]

Career

Acting career

Great moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and landed roles in the films Light It Up (1999) and Save the Last Dance (2001).[5]

In 2002, Great appeared opposite Jeremy Renner and Bruce Davison in David Jacobson's Dahmer (2002), a biographical film about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.[15][16][17] The character he portrayed, Rodney, is based on Tracy Edwards, who was intended to be Dahmer's next murder victim but managed to escape from him and successfully turn him in to the authorities.[18] For his performance in the film, Great was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance.[3][19][20][21] He lost the award to Nia Vardalos for My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002).[22]

Great collaborated with Jacobson again in Down in the Valley (2005).[23][24] He also appeared in the 2005 television movie Their Eyes Were Watching God and the 2009 film The Soloist.[5]

Other work

On June 11, 2010, Great graduated summa cum laude from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.[1][3][5] Great earned his MA degree at UCLA and is a PhD candidate at New York University.[3] In 2014, Great was announced a Cinema Research Institute Fellow at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.[3][25]

Great is the creator of the Project Catalyst app, which he developed at the New York University Cinema Research Institute.[1][4][26][27]

Great worked as a film studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington starting in 2019.[28][29][30] As of 2023, he is a professor of African-American cinema studies at San Francisco State University.[7]

Great co-edited Black Cinema & Visual Culture: Art and Politics in the 21st Century (2023) and authored The Black Pack: Comedy, Race, and Resistance (2025).[31]

Select filmography

References

  1. ^ a b c Thornton, Cedric "BIG CED" (September 3, 2014). "Artel J. Great: A Film Visionary With a Deep Sense of Responsibility". Black Enterprise. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  2. ^ Fomby, Oliva (February 14, 2019). "Artel Great Net Worth". Star News. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e Russworm, TreaAndrea; Sheppard, Samantha N.; Bowdre, Karen M. (2016). From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781496807052.
  4. ^ a b Macaulay, Scott (November 16, 2014). ""It's No Longer Enough for Artists to Simply Be Artists": Artel Great on His Audience-Building App, Project Catalyst". Filmmaker. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d e Carter, Brian W. (June 17, 2010). "Great in a Mighty Way". Los Angeles Sentinel. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  6. ^ "The Urbanworld Film Festival Presented by BET Networks With Founding Sponsor HBO Announces 2014 Festival Slate". BET. August 20, 2014. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  7. ^ a b Valrey, JR (February 27, 2023). "Dr. Artel Great revives 70s Black cinema with emphasis on Black consciousness". San Francisco Bay View. Retrieved June 11, 2023.
  8. ^ Thomas, Kevin (June 21, 2002). "'Dahmer' Falls Short of the Horrible Truth". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  9. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (July 10, 2002). "Dahmer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  10. ^ Wilmington, Michael (July 12, 2002). "'Dahmer' tasteful treatment of a ghoul". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  11. ^ "Here are selected capsule reviews of movies..." Chicago Tribune. July 19, 2002. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  12. ^ Masunaga, Samantha (January 25, 2009). "UCLA hosts speech contest". Daily Bruin. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  13. ^ Cooper, Jeanne (June 29, 2023). "The Names Making News in the Art, Sports and Culinary Scenes". Nob Hill Gazette. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
  14. ^ Hinton, Rachel (July 23, 2017). "Viola Davis, others honor life of 'True Blood' star Nelsan Ellis". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved June 29, 2019. Nearly a year ago, Ellis was the best man at Artel Great's wedding.
  15. ^ Maltin, Leonard (2014). Leonard Maltin's 2015 Movie Guide. Penguin. ISBN 9780698183612.
  16. ^ Strauss, Bob (August 8, 2002). "Well-acted 'Dahmer' is not for everyone's taste". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  17. ^ Koehler, Robert (June 16, 2002). "Dahmer". Variety. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  18. ^ Orland, Kevin (June 21, 2002). "Film Focuses On Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer". WOIO. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  19. ^ "2003 Independent Spirit Awards nominees". United Press International. December 12, 2002. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  20. ^ Mohr, Ian (December 12, 2002). "'Amazing' Graced with Six Spirit Noms". Backstage. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  21. ^ "2003 IFP Independent Spirit Award Nominations". IndieWire. December 11, 2002. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  22. ^ Harris, Dana (March 22, 2003). "'Heaven' tops Indie Spirit Awards". Variety. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  23. ^ Maltin, Leonard (2017). Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide: The Modern Era, Previously Published as Leonard Maltin's 2015 Movie Guide. Penguin. ISBN 9780525536314.page 381
  24. ^ Maltin, Leonard; Sader, Luke; Clark, Mike (2008). Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide. Penguin. p. 376. ISBN 9780452289789. artel great artel kayaru.page 376
  25. ^ Tamez, Lorena (April 21, 2014). "Tisch announces Cinema Research Institute fellows". Washington Square News. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  26. ^ Macaulay, Scott (May 26, 2015). "Artel Great Launches Project Catalyst at Cinema Research Institute Event". Filmmaker. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  27. ^ "The Urbanworld Film Festival Presented by BET Networks with Founding Sponsor HBO Announces 2014 Festival Slate". Business Wire. August 20, 2014. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  28. ^ Huffman, Alan (July 4, 2019). "The untold story of the Wild West's black cowboys". CNN. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  29. ^ Huffman, Alan (July 4, 2019). "The untold story of the Wild West's black cowboys". WBBH-TV. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  30. ^ Weber, Jared (July 30, 2019). "The real 'Old Town Road': Lil Nas X highlights black cowboy culture across US". USA Today. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  31. ^ Huey, Leah K. (May 2, 2025). "The Black Pack: Comedy, Race, and Resistance". Library Journal. Retrieved November 28, 2025.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.