A MAGNUM OPUS FILMS COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
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JAE LENOIR | FILMMAKER, WRITER & HISTORICAL RESEARCHER
I am Jae LeNoir, a filmmaker, writer, and independent historical researcher dedicated to uncovering histories too often fragmented, forgotten, or erased. As co-founder of Magnum Opus Films, I combine documentary storytelling, archival research, oral history, genealogy, and visual design to connect intimate human stories to larger questions of history, memory, identity, and community.
MY STORY
Jae LeNoir, who also publishes under the name Jae Noirel, is a poet, essayist, novelist, filmmaker, designer, and independent historical researcher from Berkeley, California. A justice-impacted filmmaker and prison reform advocate, his work is shaped by lived experience and an enduring interest in history, identity, memory, and transformation.
LeNoir is the author of Prison Poetry, a collection of poetry and essays written during incarceration, and D-Boys Blues, his debut novel. After returning home, he earned an Associate of Arts degree in Graphic Design from Laney College and founded Hub Design Studios, building a professional career in visual communication, branding, and creative direction. He later entered San Francisco State University as a Cinema major and Project Rebound student, where his creative practice increasingly evolved into historical inquiry. Through documentary filmmaking, he began combining archival records, oral histories, genealogical research, historical scholarship, and place-based investigation to explore how the past survives in families, communities, institutions, and collective memory.
His feature documentary, Where I Got My Name: Down in Mississippi, follows his father, Gerald LeNoir, as the family traces their enslaved ancestors through Marion County, Mississippi. Traveling to former plantations, archives, cemeteries, historical sites, and communities connected to their family history, the project examines slavery, emancipation, ancestry, reconciliation, historical erasure, and the relationship between personal memory and the larger historical record.
LeNoir's broader research interests include African American history, slavery and emancipation, genealogy and public history, archival media, the historiography of Egyptology, and the civilizations of the ancient Nile Valley. He is particularly interested in the ways historical narratives are constructed, preserved, challenged, and reclaimed, including the relationship between ancient Egypt, Nubia/Kush, and the broader African world.
Across film, writing, design, and historical research, the question at the center of his work remains the same:
Who controls the story of the past—and what happens when people reclaim the right to tell their own?
RESEARCH INTERESTS
African American History • Slavery & Emancipation • Genealogy • Public History • Archival Research • Historiography of Egyptology • Ancient Egypt • Nubia & Kush • Ancient Nile Valley History • Memory & Identity
