PEMON RAMI is an accomplished author, international film producer, and director. He serves on the Board of the Illinois Arts Council and is a member of the Luminary Board for the Independent Film Alliance. Previously, he was involved with the Joseph Jefferson Theatre Awards committee and acted as a National Endowment for the Arts Program Evaluator. Rami co-founded the Chicago Black Theatre Alliance, the League of Chicago Theatres, and the Midwest Black Theatre Alliance. As a teenager, he secured a recurring role on PBS’s Bird of the Iron Feather, television’s first Black soap opera, and was featured in acclaimed films such as The Spook Who Sat by the Door and Mahogany.
In 1967, Rami was appointed Associate Director of Theodore Ward’s South Side Center for the Performing Arts. The following year, he met Val Gray Ward during a performance and joined Kuumba. When Ward became director of the African American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1969, she appointed Rami as interim director of Kuumba until her return. During this time, Rami taught acting and directed productions such as Mzilikazi, The Golly Green Soldier, The Sirens, and the award-winning The Mighty Gents. By 1973, Rami became the founding Artistic/Managing Director of the Lamont Zeno Theatre. In 1981, he moved to Arizona and served as Managing/Artistic Director for the Phoenix Black Theatre Troupe. He also held positions as General Manager at Marla Gibbs Crossroads National Education and Entertainment Complex in Los Angeles and as Director of Educational Services and Public Programs at the DuSable Museum of African American History from 2011 to 2016. Rami has been included in the HistoryMakers Digital Archive at the Library of Congress and was selected for Columbia University’s Jacqueline Woodson oral history project, “I See My Light Shining: An Oral History of Our Elders.” His memoir, “When Blackness Was Golden – Observations from the Front Line,” launched in 2022 as part of Chicago Public Library’s Voices for Justice series. As the first African American film casting director in Chicago, Rami provided talent for classic feature films and television movies such as Blues Brothers, Mahogany, Cooley High, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, and Uptown Saturday Night. Pemon produced the feature film Of Boys and Men, released by Warner Brothers in 2011, starring Angela Bassett and Robert Townsend. He also produced 93 Days in Nigeria in 2016, starring Danny Glover, which aired on Netflix and Amazon Prime and earned him nominations for an African Academy Award and an African People’s Choice Award.
His film works have been featured at various film festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) (2016), Chicago International Film Festival (2016), Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) (2017), Johannesburg Rapid Lion Film Festival, Nollywood in Hollywood (2018), Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) (2016), Cinema Africa! (Bayreuth)(2016), San Francisco Black Film Festival (2008), Roxbury Film Festival (2008), Chicago International Film Festival October (2008), Chicago Latino Film Festival, Arizona Black Film Festival and the XL film festival.
Mr. Rami recently completed production of the feature film A Boy Named Bobby, which premieres at the Obama Presidential Center August 23, 2026. He recently completed production on the short film But I Will Miss Her, and the documentary Living His Life Loudly, all set to be released in 2026. Pemon is honored with a mural on the newly built Friend Health Clinic on E. 63rd Street in Chicago, created by renowned muralist Rahmaan Statik in 2022.
Bio as of 7/2026