Film

Olaniyi Areke

Princess Grace Award:
Graduate Film Scholarship, 1989

Princess Grace Statue Award:
1993

Olaniyi Areke, President/CEO of Majestic Pictures LLC, is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker who has experience in all aspects of video and film production. He has written, produced, directed, shot, and edited several video and film projects in the last 27 years.  Areke made a name for himself with his video documentary Descendants, which won an Emmy Award, and a dramatic feature film entitled Disillusion.

Besides Emmy Award, Areke has won Princess Grace Statue Award, Paul Robeson Award, Eddie Murphy/Paramount Pictures Creative Writing Award Finalist, Honorable Mention Award at the Black Filmmakers’ Hall of Fame, and Outstanding Young Man of America Award.  He has received grants from several local, state and regional organizations.

He was part of a management team that Howard University brought in 1997 to revitalize WHUT-TV, Washington, D.C. As the former Director of Student Training at WHUT, Olaniyi supervised training of students in all areas of television for 12 years, as well as served as the Programming Director for Spotlight Network.

Areke received the prestigeous 2004 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Fellowship to attend the Management Development Seminar for Television Executives (MDS) at Media Management Center in Northwestern University in Chicago.

Olaniyi Areke served for three years on the Board of Governors for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Washington, D.C. Chapter.  He was a co-Chair for the highly successful 2001 Silver Circle. 

He has taught radio, television, and film courses at Bowie State University and Morgan State University. He is currently an adjunct Professor at John H. Johnson School of Communications, Howard University.

Olaniyi Areke received his Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Production (Summa Cum Laude) in 1985 and Master of Fine Arts in Film in 1991 from Howard University.