Documentary Filmmaker | Editor | Videographer| Media Consultant
Cedric O’Bannon is a director, documentary Filmmaker, Editor, Videographer, and Media Consultant. He is a frontline documentarian whose work gives voice to the ongoing resistance against racism, fascism, and global human oppression, as well as environmental issues. His upcoming 2025 film, The Face of God, explores the iconography of religion, colonialism, and the psychological effects of Eurocentric depictions of the divine — a continuation of his long-standing commitment to truth-telling through the lens of the camera.
Born in Mississippi to parents who were both educators. O’Bannon was raised near the Sierra Nevada foothills outside Sacramento, California. That upbringing, deeply rooted in education and community, shaped his drive to interrogate the systems that shape power, memory, and cultural identity.
O’Bannon’s cinematic purpose began to crystallize in 2012 following the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a catalytic moment that reignited conversations around race and justice in America. By 2016, O’Bannon was documenting the rise of far-right political movements and filming campaign rallies of then-candidate Donald Trump. That same year, while covering a violent white nationalist demonstration in Sacramento as a credentialed video journalist, he was stabbed by a Neo-Nazi wielding a sharpened American flagpole. The attack and the subsequent police treatment of O’Bannon as a suspect rather than a victim marked a turning point, solidifying his role not just as an observer but as a participant in a broader struggle for historical accountability.
His documentation of white supremacist movements continued through Charlottesville in 2017, where a Neo-Nazi killed Heather Heyer during an anti-fascist counter-protest, and into the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. O’Bannon’s lens has consistently captured the clash between systemic violence and grassroots resistance, often at great personal risk.
From 1991 to 2000, Cedric O’Bannon received formal training in film and journalism at institutions including the National Broadcasting School, City College of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and the Academy of Art University. He has worked in feature films, stage productions, and video projects across the country, contributing to union and independent productions as a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). From the analog world to the digital world, Cedric offers unique insights into production workflows and archiving practices—his understanding of digital technologies spans pre-production through post-productionion.
Whether behind the camera in ideological war zones or quiet moments of reflection, O’Bannon’s work is marked by precision, empathy, and historical consciousness. His films are not just documents—they are acts of resistance, testimony, and remembrance.