behind the film
The Cast
Shantrelle P. Lewis
New Orleans native, Shantrelle P. Lewis, a United Nations Programme for People of African Descent Fellow, is a multi-hyphen creative and scholar who accesses multiple disciplines to help elucidate African Diasporic history, aesthetics, culture, and spirituality. Her directorial debut premiered at the BlackStar Film Festival in 2020 and won the Shine Award for Best Film from a Philadelphia-based filmmaker. Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, her highly acclaimed first book, was published by Aperture in 2017. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, NPR, BBC, Washington Post, Slate, The New Yorker, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She co-founded SHOPPE BLACK with her husband and fellow Howard alum, Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson. Shantrelle is an initiated Lucumi Sango Priest. Also, a self-identifying Hoodooist, she can be found waxing poetics about all things African spirituality online at Beaucoup Hoodoo.
Tarana J. Burke
Tarana J. Burke asserts that ‘me too.’ is more than just a moment in time. As the founder of this vital and growing movement, and as someone who has been organizing within issues facing Black women and girls for more than three decades, Tarana has a commitment and vision that is bigger than any hashtag or viral moment. Tarana is fueled by a commitment to the interruption of sexual violence and other systemic issues disproportionately impacting marginalized people — particularly Black women and girls.
Tarana has created and led campaigns that have shone a spotlight on the harm perpetrated against communities of color. Specifically, Tarana’s work to end sexual violence has exposed the ugly truths of sexism, has spoken truth to power, has increased access to resources and support for survivors, and has paved the way forward for an expanding and inclusive movement.
Tarana has used her platform to share her long-standing belief that healing is not a destination, but a journey. This philosophy has inspired millions of survivors who previously had to live in isolation to deal with the pain, shame, and trauma of their experience. Tarana’s steadfast commitment to the cause has led to numerous accolades including 2017 TIME Person of the Year, and the 2019 Sydney Peace Prize, among many other honors.
Brittney Cooper
Brittney Cooper spends her days in conversation with college students about everything from feminism to hip hop. During her other waking hours, she uses digital platforms and blogging as a virtual classroom to incite her national readership to have more robust and honest conversations about racism, popular culture and how to take down the patriarchy. She is an Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University.
Cooper's work and words have appeared on MSNBC, BET, NPR, PBS, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, TV Guide, New York Magazine, Salon.com, The Root.com and Al Jazeera America, among many others. She is a regular contributor at Cosmpolitan.com and co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective and blog. Cooper is author of two forthcoming books, Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (University of Illinois Press 2017) and Never Scared: One Black Feminist's Refusal to Bow Down, Back Up, or Give In (St. Martin’s Press 2017) and editor of one co-edited volume, The Crunk Feminist Collection (The Feminist Press 2017).
Dr. Marta Moreno-Vega
Dr. Marta Moreno-Vega established the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) (http://cccadi.org/) in 1976, inspired by a vision to create an international organization to promote and link communities of African descent. She guided the capital campaign for the renovation of the landmark firehouse at 120 East 125th Street, the Center’s new home. Dr. Moreno Vega has been an advocate for cultural equity cultural studies and education. As the second director of El Museo del Barrio, one of the founders of the Association of Hispanic Arts, Network of Centers of Color and the Roundtable of Institutions of Color. Dr. Moreno Vega has contributed to assuring that the contributions of African and African descendants are integral to the lives of civil society in the Americas. She has conducted research in Yoruba belief systems in the African Diaspora and has organized international conferences uniting scholars and leading traditional experts focused on expanding the knowledge and importance of sacred African Diaspora traditions.
Moreno Vega is co-founder of the Global Afro Latino and Caribbean Initiative (GALCI), a former program of Hunter College/Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. She is chief editor of Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora (Arte Publico Press) and author of The Altar of My Soul (One World/Ballantine, 2001). She is director and co-producer of the documentary When the Spirits Dance Mambo: Growing Up Nuyorican in El Barrio and has written a personal memoir by the same name (Three Rivers Press, 2003, Black Classic Press, 2018). Dr. Vega is also co-editor of Voices from the Battlefront Achieving Cultural Equity.
Latham Thomas
After giving birth to her son Fulano in 2003, Latham Thomas set out on a mission to help women reclaim birth. A graduate of Columbia University & The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Latham is a maternity lifestyle maven, world renown wellness leader and master birth doula on the vanguard of transforming the wellness movement. Named one of Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul 100, Latham is bridging the gap between optimal wellness, spiritual growth, and radical self care and is the go-to-guru for modern holistic lifestyle for women. She authored the bestselling book titled, “Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to a Fabulous and Abundant Pregnancy”, foreword by Dr. Christiane Northrup in 2012 and most recently published bestseller OWN YOUR GLOW: A Soulful Guide to Luminous Living and Crowning the Queen Within. Latham serves on the TUFTS University Nutrition Council and is also a member of the Well + Good Council where she provides expertise in women's wellness, pregnancy and self-care. In March of 2018, Latham released the meditation audio program, BEDITATIONS: Guided Meditations and Rituals for Rest and Renewal. She teaches at universities and teaching hospitals around the country, helping to improve the patient labor and delivery experience.
Tina Farris
Tina Farris has spent the last two decades as tour manager for legends including the Roots, Chris Rock, Nicki Minaj, and Queen Latifah. Her career highlights include overseeing Lil Wayne’s America's Most Wanted tour; guiding the Black Eyed Peas through 15 countries, 76 cities and 99 sold-out shows to gross more than $86 million; and producing and managing Chris Rock’s Total Blackout Tour.
Farris—a California native, bass player, and UCLA alumna—began her career as a high school teacher but switched gears to bet on herself and her first love, music, by accepting an offer to tour manage her favorite band, the Roots. She soon maturated into a go-to logistics and production ace for the Roots crew, several of the band’s collaborators (Jill Scott, Common, and Pharrell) and, subsequently, some of the world’s premier events (the Super Bowl, World Cup, and NBA All-Star Game).
Farris has spent 20 years amassing a diverse clientele that includes D’Angelo, Maxwell, Lauryn Hill, the Internet, Syd, and Steve Lacy. As a woman who’s found success in a male-dominated industry, she is dedicated to empowering other women through Decades, her mentorship conference for women of all backgrounds and orientations.
Rev. Dr. Theresa S. Thames
The Rev. Dr. Theresa S. Thames is the Associate Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel at Princeton University. As an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church, she served as a local pastor in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for nine years before joining the ORL team in 2016. Dean Thames is a graduate of Howard University, Duke University Divinity School and Wesley Theological Seminary. She is passionate about the intersections of theology, gender, organizational development, and social justice. She is a challenging preacher, thoughtful theologian, and devoted friend. Dean Thames is a lover of life and music who prioritizes self-care and believes that radical joy is resistance. She is involved with the Princeton community through student engagement, pastoral care, overseeing religious programs, and regularly preaching at the University Chapel.
Adama Delphine Fawundu
Adama Delphine Fawundu is a photographer and visual artist born in Brooklyn, NY to parents from Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea, West Africa. “Adama Delphine Fawundu’s work is about finding ways to connect with her kin – a group not merely confined to those who share a direct common ancestor but an expansive definition inclusive of the many who descend from the dispersed, the stolen, those for whom the violence, and opportunity wrought by the sea is at once a spectre and a fact of everyday life,” writes scholar Niama Safia Sandy.
With over fifteen years experience working as a photographer, Fawundu enhanced her studio practice and completed her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2018. She now uses photography, printmaking, video, sound and assemblage as an artistic language.
Fawundu co-founded and independently published the sold-out book MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. The critically acclaimed book MFON led Fawundu on a book tour which included talks at The Tate Modern, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harvard University amongst many other institutions.
Ms. Fawundu’s works have been reviewed in publications and media outlets such as Time Magazine, The New York Times, Leica Fotografie International, Vogue Online, The Washington Post, Dazed Digital, Arise TV, and the BBC World. Ms. Fawundu’s works can be found in the private and public collections such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Historical Society, and The Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Erica Sewell
Erica Sewell is a Talent Leader and Founder of creative consultancy, Escape Artist. Her experience started in the global fashion industry, from working as Head Designer of Isaac Mizrahi’s Target line, to leading programs at The Cape Town Fashion Council, including Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in South Africa. Her design work also included labels such as Armani Exchange, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren, and she’s been in the administration of higher education institutions such as Parsons The New School for Design, The Art Institute, and FIT, where she coached students and career changers on attaining creative opportunities and negotiating. Sewell currently leads inclusion talent acquisition efforts for Netflix’s Outreach & Engagement team, where she focuses on engaging underrepresented creatives across writing, art, and story for film, series, and animation. Prior to Netflix, she recruited and developed creative talent for CBS Interactive’s portfolio of 30+ digital brands across multiple lifestyle categories, and did the same for Williams-Sonoma Inc., Ann Taylor/ LOFT, and Adecco Creative. Other notable projects include founding the book deal-turned-career-development program, CreativeTypes, as well as creative consulting for artists/filmmakers, Bradford Young and Leslie Hewitt on Untitled Structures.
Sewell holds an MA from The New School for Social Research, a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and research credits from the Democracy and Diversity Institute for Graduate Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her work and collaborations have been featured in Elle South Africa, Vogue Magazine, The New York Times, and ArtForum.
Desiree Gordon
Healer, Creative, Strategist - Desiree Gordon uses heart-centeredness to build capacities, communities, and courage.
She is the Founder of Create Anew Now, the Director of Programs and Strategy at Brooklyn Arts Council, the Programs Editor for Small Axe Visualities, and Mother of Ishara and Morenike.
Yolanda Sengweni
Born to a South African freedom fighter mother, who fled from the apartheid regime to the United States when Sangweni was a small child and lived in Harlem during her formative years, she is Senior Editor at ESSENCE.com, one of the leading publications for Black women in the United States. Sangweni is also co-founder of AfriPOP!, an online magazine focusing on contemporary African youth culture, music, fashion and film from an Afropolitan perspective. Sangweni worked as a Features editor at TRACE Magazine and contributing writer for “O: The Oprah Magazine” (South Africa), Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Arise Magazine, and Time Out New York covering music, fashion and culture.
Dr. Kokahvah Zauditu-Selassie
Dr. Kokahvah Zauditu-Selassie, a priest of Obatala in the Lukumi/Yoruba tradition, currently teaches at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. . Formerly an Associate Professor and Chair of the African World Studies and History Department at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, she earned a B.A. degree in Speech Communication from California State University, Fullerton, the M.S. degree in Reading from Morgan State University, and the Doctor of Arts in the Humanities with a concentration in English from Clark Atlanta University. She has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, National Council for Black Studies fellow at the University of Ghana, Legon, a Fulbright Fellow in Cairo, Egypt, a New York University Scholar-In Residence, A Mellon Fellow at the Goree Institute in Dakar, Senegal, and a Fulbright scholar in the Republic of South Africa. Dr. Zauditu-Selassie has lived, studied, and traveled extensively in Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Her teaching specialization is African American literature while her research focuses on African spiritual culture.