Scribe Video Center will host Emmy Award-winning director/cinematographer Peter Nicks, co-founder of Proximity Media

Submitted on October 20,2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Brittanie Sterner
brittanie@scribe.org
215-222-4201 | scribe.org

Scribe Video Center will host Emmy Award-winning director/cinematographer Peter Nicks, co-founder of Proximity Media with Ryan Coogler

PHILADELPHIA, October 8, 2026 – Scribe Video Center will host Emmy Award-winning director, producer, and cinematographer Peter Nicks for “Body of Work”, Scribe’s annual public screening and discussion series centering filmmakers who have significantly shaped our visual culture.

Oakland-based with Philadelphia roots, Peter Nicks recently co-founded along with Ryan Coogler Proximity Media, the mission-driven multimedia company rooted in the Oakland community. He was head of Proximity’s non-fiction and documentary division from 2021-2025, as well as the founder of Open' Hood, a Bay Area nonprofit dedicated to creating stronger, more active, and more connected communities through documentary film, television and digital storytelling.

Known for his immersive documentaries The Waiting Room, The Force, and Homeroom (a trilogy exploring health care, law enforcement, and education in Oakland), Nicks will be in conversation with the public following three screenings of his films at “Body of Work” events, taking place at Scribe Video Center (3908 Lancaster Ave.) from Wednesday, Oct. 28 to Friday, Oct. 30:

Oct. 28: Screening of The Wolf (2000) – Nicks’ first, most intimate film and fearless chronicle of his own drug addiction, trafficking, and ultimate incarceration during his college years. Originally broadcast on ABC’s Nightline, the film counters simplistic views propagated by the “War on Drugs.”
Oct. 29: Screening of Homeroom (2021) – following a group of seniors at Oakland High School in spring 2020, the film received the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at Sundance.
Oct. 30: Screening of The Waiting Room (2012) – a contemporary portrait of healthcare set in Oakland’s Highland public hospital, shortlisted for the Oscar and named by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle as the best documentary of 2012.

All screenings cost $5 and will start at 7:00 PM. Additionally, at 5:00 PM on Oct. 30, Nicks will host a special learning session open to the public on the craft of direct cinema.

Guest film curator Cornelius Moore of Newsreel said, “I was thrilled that Peter Nicks accepted the invitation to headline the “Body of Work” series of programs. His work – now more urgent than ever – is so representative of Scribe’s mission. Nicks’ documentaries are profoundly accessible and engage audiences, generate reflection and encourage action.”

More about “Body of Work” and Peter Nicks
Scribe hosts “Body of Work” as a retrospective featuring a documentary filmmaker who has made a substantial impact on contemporary visual culture, with screenings paired with discussions with the creators. Recent “Body of Work” filmmakers have included Yvonne Welbon, Zeinabu Davis, Dorothea Braemer, Tony Buba, and others.

Known widely for immersive camera work, cinema vérité style, and films that explore complex social issues through intimate, character-driven non-fiction narratives, Peter Nicks’ recent feature documentary works include Anthem (2023), following composer Kris Bowers’ journey to create a new American anthem, and Stephen Curry: Underrated (2023), the coming-of-age story of a Bay Area basketball superstar. A graduate of Howard University, and with a Masters from the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism, he is also the founder of Open’hood, a nonprofit media organization that uses storytelling to create more active and connected communities. Nicks was recently awarded the SFFS/KRF screenwriting grant and named a Film Independent Fellow to develop his first narrative feature, Escaping Morgantown, loosely based on the year he spent in federal prison in the early 90s.

More about Scribe Video Center
Since 1982, Scribe has used electronic media to document issues and ideas affecting diverse economic and cultural communities, create media works that comment on the human condition, and celebrate cultural diversity. Scribe Video Center facilitates new approaches to visual form and language in an effort to further the aesthetics of video making. Through workshops, screenings, and collaborative productions, Scribe empowers underrepresented voices and documents untold histories. The Body of Work retrospective series is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Creative Industries and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund.

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