Wendell B. Harris, Jr. is an American independent filmmaker whose 1990 indie classic Chameleon Street is out now in a new 4K restoration through Arbelos Films. He trained in drama at the prestigious Interlochen and Juilliard Schools, and his family founded Prismatic Images, an award-winning film/video/audio production facility in Flint, Michigan, in 1979. Harris spent three years crisscrossing the United States in order to film and record intimately intense interview for the radio/video series Black Biography showcasing the lives of Black icons from the spheres of art, history, and politics, as told in their own words and voices. In 1990, Prismatic Images released its first feature film, Chameleon Street, a biting satire based on “compulsive imposter” William Douglas Street, Jr. which won the won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. After three tumultuous years in Hollywood, Harris returned to Michigan and Prismatic Images to make Yeshua Vs. Frankenstein in 3D, a two-hour documentary devoted to the power of media as social engineer. He has also appeared as an actor in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight and Todd Phillips’ Road Trip, while touring as a guest speaker at college and university campuses nationwide.
