Liberated Territory: A MASTERCLASS BY HAILE GERIMA

Adisa Septuri

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Filmmaker

Born in Oakland, California, Adisa is part of a new wave of Bay Area storytellers who are bold and creatively adventurous in their filmmaking. He recently directed his debut feature film, SKIN IN THE GAME. Adisa received his Master of Fine Arts in Film from New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. In 2016 Adisa directed and produced A DAY WITHOUT MINES. Filmed in the diamond district of Sierra Leone, West Africa, Adisa witnessed children as young as six years old working in the mines which impacted him greatly. He was able to capture this remarkable story in a short documentary which won Best Short Documentary at the Beverly Hills Film, TV and New Media Festival, later showcased on PBS.

Alexander Golden

Location: West Hollywood, CA
Profession: Writer / Director

Alexander Golden, originally from Detroit, is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker whose thematic focus is the intra-communal relationships within the Black diaspora. His debut short film, THE CRACK IS FINE, premiered at the 2017 Portland Film Festival. Golden recently directed music videos for Grammy-nominated artists, Mykal Kilgore and Jamison Ross.

Andrés Vázquez

Location: Alhambra, CA
Profession: Filmmaker & Multi-disciplinary Artist

Andrés Vázquez is a first generation U.S. Latine writer-director based in Los Angeles. As the seventh son of Mexican immigrants and a descendant of the US-Mexico Bracero Program, Andrés’ filmmaking examines the dialectical process of people making something out of what their situation is making of them. He believes in creating stories that are willing to tell the truth and stay in contact with the humanity of those that these stories are depicting. He is a Kintsugi Spirit Artist Grantee with the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center for his project, FREQUENCIES, a multimedia documentary that explores the importance of holding communal spaces for mourning and meditation.

Ashunda Norris

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Filmmaker, Poet, and Teacher

A native of Georgia, Ashunda Norris is a multidisciplinary artist who works as a filmmaker, poet, archivist and critical scholar in Los Angeles. Ashunda’s most recent cinematic gesture, MINO: A Disaporic Myth is currently a part of RED SPRING’s Curating the End of the World online exhibition and is archived in North Carolina State University’s library. A proud alumna of Paine College and Howard University, the artist holds MFAs in Poetry and Screenwriting. Ashunda loves hot water cornbread, the ocean, playing UNO with her family.

Bemnet Yemesgen

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Global Head of Strategy and Brand Identity

Bemnet (Bem) Yemesgen is a designer, photographer and budding filmmaker. Bemnet has over 17 years of experience working for brands like Adidas, USA Today and Nike Foundation’s Girl Effect. Bemnet dropped out of California Polytechnic University, where he was studying Architecture, to care for his sick father, and started working evening shifts at a printing company as a production artist. This is where he fell in love with design and art direction. Bemnet’s short film VINNY premiered at DC Shorts Film Festival.

Cartashia Perkins

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Writer / Substitute Teacher / Community Leader

Born and raised in Watts, California, Cartashia Perkins is an author, educator, entrepreneur, screenwriter, long-time activist and resident of the Jordan Downs Housing Projects. Since her years as a teenager, she has been actively involved in her community through the non-profit organization, Common Grounds. Cartashia continued her community involvement by starting a drama club for the youth in herneighborhood. She has worked professionally guiding and educating at-risk youth for over 20 years. Cartashia wrote two children’s books tackling the subjects of police brutality, gang violence and how to avoid gangs.

Chloe Samillano

Location: Perris, CA
Profession: Filmmaker & After School Youth Program Leader

Chloe Samillano is a queer Filipina writer and filmmaker. Born in Manila, Philippines, she immigrated with her family to the U.S. at age five. She grew up in Moreno Valley, CA (a.k.a a place passed by on the freeway) and received her B.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University. As a storyteller, she’s interested in exploring the ways larger, macro-level systems influence our interpersonal lives. Her artistic work tends to revolve around identity, the banality of everyday life and making sense of her self-delusions.

Christopher Ortega

Location: Atlanta, GA
Profession: Writer, Director, Producer

Christopher Ortega is an award-winning independent filmmaker based in Atlanta, GA. Born to Jamaican parents in Queens, NY and raised in Ocala, FL, Ortega spent his formative years processing the stark contrast of Black life in both the urban and rural United States through a first-generation American’s perspective. Ortega graduated from Morehouse College and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. While at USC, his award-winning Afrofuturist short-film, PROTOTYPE premiered at the 2018 American Black Film Festival in Miami, FL. Ortega directed, ONEIRONAUT, a magical realism short-film which premiered at the 2020 Diversity at Cannes Film Festival in France.

Donna Harati

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Community Lawyer

Donna was born and raised on Karankawa territory in Houston, Texas to Iranian immigrant parents and has lived in present-day Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, Boston, Cincinnati, and Cleveland before moving to Los Angeles, Tongva territory, five years ago. Donna has been actively involved in prison abolition-related work for over a decade and taught full time at the Penitentiary of New Mexico for two years while simultaneously serving as a crisis volunteer at the Santa Fe Rape Crisis Center. Donna’s day job is as the Director of Legal Services/Tattoo Removal and Community Lawyer at Homeboy Industries. Donna dabbles in herbalism, collage, coaching, hiking, gardening and doula work and loves reading, book clubs, swimming in the ocean and sloths.

Erin Lunsford

Location: Yorba Linda, CA
Profession: Filmmaker / Artist

Erin Lunsford’s work dissects the varied intersections between the phenomenon of identity and objectively perceived worlds via film, intermedia, drawing and painting. Born in the UAE and raised in Saudi Arabia, Erin’s creative beginnings in the U.S. sparked as she worked as a tattoo artist in Los Angeles. Tattooing at Fairfax’s Solid Gallery One while attending the University of Southern California, Erin then transitioned from a tattooist upon graduating with a B.A. in Film Production from the School of Cinematic Arts and B.A. in Fine Arts from Roski School of Art & Design. Since university, Erin has worked as an artist and filmmaker in Los Angeles, California.

Jacarrea Garraway

Location: New York, NY
Profession: Cinematographer, Editor, and Creative Director

Jacarrea Garraway is an independent filmmaker based in New York City. Her artistic motto is centered around familiarizing the strange and mystifying the familiar, based on a notable Toni Morrison quote. In her most recent work, she considers the ways in which films can archive sequences of Black beauty, movement and music in order to capture a sense of double consciousness. Garraway is also a cinematographer and has created visuals for fashion designers, musicians, educators and entrepreneurs. She received a BFA in film and Television production from New York University.

Jharae Jordan-Anderson

Location: Marina Del Rey, CA
Profession: Filmmaker

Jharae “JJ” Jordan-Anderson is a self-taught filmmaker from San Diego, CA. As a young child, JJ was first introduced to the power of storytelling while witnessing the exchange of testimonies at her parent’s weekly Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Passionate about creating strong and authentic representations of women and people of color in the media, much of JJ’s work focuses on supporting the voices of community members, trailblazers, and modern-day leaders. As the co-founder of award-winning video production company HRDWRKER, JJ creates community-driven content and has been able to work with entities such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, Phenomenal, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Kyle Brett

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Legal Counsel & Filmmaker

Kyle Alex Brett is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, lawyer and film enthusiast. Upon graduating from Howard University School of Law, Kyle moved to New York City and spent five years as a corporate and entertainment lawyer at various law firms. Since relocating to California, Kyle has directed the SAG-short film PIECES OF MEMORY and is in the process of finishing his personal project of editing one hundred, one-minute videos on Instagram. Kyle’s work explores blackness, memory and music, while utilizing evocative editing techniques to trigger subconscious associations within his audience.

Kyung-Ja Lee

Location: Los Angeles, CA
Profession: Filmmaker

Kyung-Ja Lee is a bilingual Korean-American woman who obtained her Master’s degree in psychology at Columbia University, New York, and her Master’s degree in directing at AFI (1990). While developing her feature film projects, Lee worked with Korean art-house film acquisition/distribution companies and generated a “cult film movement” in Korea, which successfully challenged the Korean government’s ban on overnight screening.

Malcolm Moore

Location: Hyattsville, MD
Profession: Multimedia Production Specialist

Malcolm Moore is an artist from Prince George’s County, Maryland and possesses a strong passion for cinematography and visual storytelling. He was first introduced to the camera as a creative tool in 2014 and developed a foundation in photography through a combination of self education and taking advantage of internship opportunities. Malcolm continues to hone his skills daily through the study of light and shadow, photographic composition and human behavior. In 2017, Malcolm started to gain experience on set as a member of the camera department, often working as a camera assistant. He has since served as cinematographer on several independently produced projects. Malcolm also manages a wide variety of digital media projects at the American Council on Education in Washington D.C.