In celebration of Black History Month, let’s shine a light on the artists and changemakers in media:
NYWIFT Interviews: Be sure to check out NYWIFT blogger Tammy Reese’s series of interviews that shine a spotlight on Black artists in the NYWIFT community, discussing their favorite inspirational figures and career highlights.
NYWIFT Talks: On next week’s NYWIFT Talks, we return with part 2 of our conversation with NY Media Arts Organization that represent diversity artists with “Making a Way Out of No Way: The Importance of Amplifying BIPOC and Black Women Voices with Visionary New York Media Arts Organizations” on February 24. Learn more and register.
Watch List: There are many Black History Month film and TV recommendations to choose from, but this list of six essential films from Time is a great starting point. It also happens to feature two films with NYWIFT ties: member and our first-ever Nancy Malone Directing Award Muse honoree Julie Dash’s Illusions, which candidly explores racism and sexism in Hollywood both present and past, was recently named to the National Film Registry. It was preserved with support from the NYWIFT Women’s Film Preservation Fund and we screened it in our Member Screening Series in the Fall. NYWIFT Muse Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou (pictured above), with its nuanced portrayal of family life in the segregated 1960s South, also made the list.
Cynthia Lopez
Related Posts
NYWIFT Member Spotlight: Kelcey Edwards
NYWIFT Member Kelcey Edwards found her way into documentary filmmaking through Iron Gate Studios, a nonprofit gallery and artist workspace she cofounded in her early twenties in Austin, Texas. At the time, she was making small narrative films alongside many other Austin-based filmmakers involved in the “mumblecore” scene; her first film, Letter, screened at SXSW in 2006. Since cameras and equipment were always present in the gallery, she began interviewing many of the artists who visited the space. Over time, the habit of recording conversations and documenting artists’ lives became a steady part of her practice. That interest eventually led her to pursue an MFA in Documentary Film at Stanford and later to move to New York, where she continued developing their work. About a decade later, she directed The Art of Making It, a feature documentary about the art world, which won the Audience Award at SXSW in 2022. It’s currently available on most streaming platforms. Kelcey’s films have received support from the MacArthur Foundation, Sundance, and Tribeca Film Institute, among others, have been broadcast internationally, and have screened at top-tier festivals including SXSW, Berlinale, and Hamptons International. In our interview, Kelcey discussed her teaching philosophy, approach to filmmaking, and upcoming projects.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Therese Cayaba-Jones
Welcome, Therese Cayaba-Jones, to NYWIFT. Therese is a filmmaker with over 15 years of experience with films, documentaries, and series across the Philippines, Singapore, and the U.S. She just finished the feature screenplay for UnMarry, which was recently announced as one of the entries for the Metro Manila Film Festival 2025. Currently, Therese is producing the film Tales My Father Told, and raising money through NYWIFT fiscal sponsorship. Read on to see Therese’s story of moving to New York, her role in the 48 Hour Film Project, and her take on the state of independent filmmaking in the Big Apple.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Kyle Hrabe
Welcome to NYWIFT, Kyle Hrabe! Kyle Hrabe is a Brooklyn-based creative currently writing for Scamfluencers from Wondery Podcasts. She has a background in scripted television writing, sketch comedy, and stand-up. Before moving to New York, Kyle lived in Los Angeles where she was the executive assistant for writer-director couple Angela Robinson and Alexandra Martinez Kondracke. Kyle was also a fellow for Outfest Film Festival’s emerging filmmaker program OutSet. She received her BFA in Writing for Screen and Television from USC where she showran the campus cooking show, DELISH, despite only eating a bag of chips for dinner every night.
READ MORENYWIFT Member Spotlight: Kristen Golden
Kristen Golden is a writer and producer whose creative work runs the gamut of genres. She wrote the screenplay AWE, for which she won the 2023 Athena Film Festival’s Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award, and was selected as a 2025 Screenplay Semi-finalist by the Cordillera International Film Festival. Kristen is a producer of the narrative short film Irving Berlin’s View of the East River, shot in Spring 2025. She is the co-author with her wife, Barbara Findlen, of the book Remarkable Women of the Twentieth Century: 100 Portraits of Achievement. Kristen is the speechwriter for the Women's Media Center. In our interview, Kristen discussed her award-winning screenplay AWE, the connection between advocacy and storytelling, and her advice for future female leaders.
READ MORE
Comments are closed