Over the course of the twelve-month program, Amplifier Fellows will receive bespoke support to propel their careers and a selected project forward both creatively and strategically, as well as customized mentorship pairings including a Netflix executive as an industry advisor and also a board member from Film Independent. Each Fellow will also receive professional coaching in partnership with Renee Freedman & Co, and financial and coaching in partnership with The Jill James. Each Fellow will also receive a $30,000 unrestricted grant (!) to provide sustainability and/or support their creative endeavors.
“The Amplifier Fellowship provides impactful creative and strategic support to selected Fellows so that they can further strengthen their foundations as both artists and entrepreneurs to have lasting and sustainable careers,” said Angela C. Lee, Director of Artist Development. “We are so excited to support our impressive third cohort of Amplifier Fellows and work with them over the next year to help them reach the next level in their careers.” The 2024 Amplifier supported projects are:
Project: The Matriarch Type: Narrative Feature Writer/Director: Zandashé Brown Logline: In the aftermath of her mother’s psychotic break, a precocious teenage girl battles her own impending wellness crisis by grounding herself in her late grandmother’s spiritual practice.
Project: The Prince of 7th Ave: The Legend of WilliWear/Willi Smith Type: Nonfiction Feature Producer: Moira Griffin Logline: The Prince of 7th Ave: The Legend of WilliWear/Willi Smith is a feature-length documentary exploring the incredible life, career and legacy of Willi Smith, an innovative black American designer who disrupted the fashion industry with his eponymous label WILLI WEAR and single-handedly changed the way we dress today–yet somehow, he remains largely unknown.
Project: The Gardeners Type: Nonfiction Feature Director/Producer: Crystal Kayiza Logline: The Gardeners follows the Worthy Women of Watkins Street Cemetery, keepers of one of the oldest Black cemeteries in Mississippi.
Project: Chosen Fathers Type: Nonfiction Feature Writer/Director/Producer: Mobolaji Olambiwonnu Logline: An intimate and unflinching look at Black fathers navigating the trauma of losing a child to violence over the course of a week-long retreat.
Title: Pure Type: Narrative Feature Producer: Avril Speaks Logline: For 17-year-old queer Celeste, senior year in her affluent Black community means following family tradition and becoming a debutante… but she longs for a different kind of coming out.
Project: Anita Type: Narrative Feature Producer: Monique Walton Logline: Desperate for a better life, ambitious Anita escapes her conservative town in India by orchestrating her own arranged marriage and moving to the U.S. But when her fierce pursuit of the American Dream threatens her marriage, she must confront the very life she escaped to achieve true independence.
Now let’s meet the filmmakers…
Zandashé Brown
Zandashé Brown is a storyteller and writer/director born-and-bred in and inspired by southern Louisiana. As a daughter of the abandoned American South, she blends Black Southern introspection and spirituality with surrealistic horror to tell stories about neglected places and peoples. Brown is an alum of the 2022 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab for her debut feature-in-development, The Matriarch, as well as an alum of the 2021 Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2022.”
Moira Griffin
Moira Griffin is a producer, strategist and former executive with New Bumper and Paint Productions in partnership with writer/director Marshall Tyler. Their most recent award- winning projects include Slow Pulse (CBS/BET), Cap (HBO), Night Shift (Sundance) executive produced by Juvee Productions, and Landline (HULU). Her projects have premiered at festivals including Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, ABFF and the Tribeca Film Festival. NBP is currently developing projects across all genres, including the documentary The Prince of Seventh Ave. and the narrative film Fever Dream. In addition, she is producing the documentary The Inquisitor directed by Angela Tucker, through her company Alice’s Plan.
Crystal Kayiza
Crystal Kayiza is a filmmaker raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma now based in Brooklyn, NY. Her film Rest Stop won the Jury Prize for Best US Short at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Her film Edgecombe screened at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on POV. The following year See You Next Time was selected for the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released by The New Yorker. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” Crystal is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award, Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and HBO / The Gotham Documentary Development Initiative.
Mobolaji Olambiwonnu
Mobolaji is a storyteller/educator with Jamaican Christian and Nigerian Muslim parents. Growing up mediating multiple cultural identities has inspired him to use cinema as a tool to illuminate the superficial conditions that divide us and accentuate the merits of shedding our prejudices. He attended UCLA and the American Film Institute. His feature documentary, Ferguson Rises, won an Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival and represented Independent Lens/PBS at the Television Critics Association. Noted film critic Kenneth Turan called Ferguson Rises, “excellent and impressive.” Mobolaji is a Gotham/HBO Fellow and repped at UTA.
Avril Speaks
Avril Speaks is an award-winning producer, director and showrunner based in Los Angeles. She has produced several award-winning films including Jinn, Dotty & Soul, and the South African film African America, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, four African Movie Academy Awards and streamed on Netflix. Most recently, Avril was the showrunner for the docuseries Uprooted, available on Max, and was an executive producer for Files of the Unexplained, coming soon to Netflix. Avril has been a Sundance Momentum Fellow, a recipient of the Dear Producer Award and is also a co-founding member of Distribution Advocates.
Monique Walton
Monique Walton is an independent producer. She is the 2024 recipient of the Film Independent Spirit Awards Producers Award. Walton’s films include Sing Sing (dir. Greg Kwedar) which premiered at TIFF in 2023, and Bull (dir. Annie Silverstein), which premiered at Cannes – Un Certain Regard in 2019. She produced the feature documentary Hollow Tree (dir. Kira Akerman), which premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival. Walton was a 2016 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, a 2020 Rotterdam Producing Fellow and a 2021 Cannes-Producers Network Fellow. For more information on any of our Artist Development Labs or the projects that have been developed in them, please contact us. Additional information can be found at filmindependent.org. For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision. Film Independent Members watch nominees and vote for the winners of the Spirit Awards. To become a Member of Film Independent and make your vote count for next year’s 40th Annual Spirit Awards, just click here. To support our mission with a donation, click here.
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