A Note From The Director/ Executive Producer

Dr. S. Rasheem—who often introduces herself with the disarming phrase, “Just call me Rasheem”—is a documentarian whose work is grounded in the conviction that documentation is never neutral. For her, recording stories carries an ethical obligation: the knowledge produced must contribute to improving the material conditions of the communities from which it emerges.

This philosophy shapes her flagship initiative, the Baltimore Legacy Project, a multimedia documentary series created in response to the systematic erasure and invalidation of local, community-based knowledge, particularly Black knowledge. Through the project, Rasheem translates the tools of social science research into film, constructing a living archive of Baltimore through the voices and lived experiences of its elder residents. The series preserves histories often absent from official narratives and actively challenges the epistemicide that erases community memory and Black intellectual traditions.

The project’s first two installments, Baltimore Still Rising and Beyond the Wire, both debuted to sold-out theaters, reflecting a profound appetite for stories about Baltimore told by and for the people who know it best.

For Rasheem, film is more than storytelling; it is a form of intervention. Through both scholarship and documentary practice, she works to ensure that the knowledge produced about Baltimore does more than interpret the city; it circulates within the community, inspires dialogue across generations, and contributes to building a more equitable future for the people who call it home.