Alex Ashe’s story doesn’t begin behind a camera. It begins with a battered lighting technician’s manual clutched between takes, with sweat on his brow and questions on his tongue. From long nights rigging lights to quiet hours studying lenses, Ashe’s climb through the grip and electric department shaped the sensibility he brings to the frame today. Now a cinematographer and director, his images carry that hard-earned precision and a belief that light is never neutral. 

In this episode, Ashe discusses the layered politics of light and shadow, from his work on Nosferasta, an anti-colonial Rastafarian vampire epic, to The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, shot almost entirely on 16mm in the relentless Florida sun. His collaborations with artists like Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and Ira Sachs open a conversation about the deep trust between director and DP, where every decision—from pulling the exposure to choosing glass—is both a technical and philosophical one. 

But this is also the story of a filmmaker who questions images even as he makes them. Ashe grew up in the age of Netflix DVDs and arrived at cinema through theory, through The Battle of Algiers, through late-night rewinds. His education in Modern Culture and Media and Africana Studies taught him to interrogate the frame—and that mindset infuses all his work, whether shooting the surreal aftermath of a police shooting or chasing natural light in a cramped apartment. 

Visual Intonation is a show about how we see, and in this conversation, Ashe shows us how cinema can still be both a document and a dream. We talk risk, reverence, and the beauty of shooting on film. No gimmicks. 

Just a love for the image and the meaning inside it. 

Alex Ashe’s Website: https://alexmashe.com/

Alex Ashe’s IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5737742/

Alex Ashe’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexmashe/?hl=en

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