Baker Artist Portfolios

Corey Hughes is a Baltimore-based filmmaker working across narrative, documentary, and experimental forms. His work has premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Sundance, SXSW, New York Film Festival, CPH:DOX, and Locarno Film Festival, where he was awarded the Pardi di Domani Special Jury Prize for the short film "Armageddon 2."

As a cinematographer, his credits include Marnie Ellen Hertzler’s "Crestone" (2020) and Theo Anthony’s "All Light, Everywhere" (2021) which was awarded the Sundance Jury Award for Nonfiction Experimentation and a CinemaEye Honor Nomination for Outstanding Cinematography.

He has participated in international workshops and residencies including Berlinale Talents, Werner Herzog’s Cuba Workshop, Nouvelle Bug Rome, Vermont Studio Center, and a MacDowell Fellowship. His work has been featured on Criterion Channel, Vimeo Staff Picks, Le Cinema Club, Adult Swim, No Budge, MUBI, and presented in galleries including Macao Milano, That That Gallery, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

He is a current grantee of both the 2024 Rubys Artist Grants & Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund.

Artist Statement: 

My artistic practice is rooted in collaboration, moving between film, music, and art worlds. Shifting roles (director, cinematographer, editor) based on the project and collaborators. A documentary feature film. A collaborative music video. An experimental short. I see each project as a branch of my larger artistic practice aimed at expanding the traditional ideas and structures of the filmmaking medium. Using filmmaking to bring together different voices within the Baltimore art community.

My work documents how individuals use cameras and technology to understand themselves in relation to the environments around them. Employing a collaged approach of image making techniques my practice expands the definition of the cinematic image to represent the complexity and contractions of our current moment. Creating images that reflect the feeling of living in an increasingly hybridized world mediated by technologies we don’t fully understand, or control. My films utilize humor, beauty, and surrealism as a gateway to explore deeper issues of spirituality, identity, emerging technologies, and ecology. Creating narratives to process the past, interrogate the present, and envision new futures.