behind the film
Meet The Crew
Shantrelle P. Lewis
Director and Producer
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.
JaSaun Buckner
Producer
JaSaun Buckner is a visionary producer and media strategist specializing in content that conquers delicate social issues as a vehicle for inspiration, information and impact. She is an Emmy Nominated Writer and celebrates the achievements of a digital Emmy, Webby Awards, NAACP Image awards and Cynopsis Social Good awards.
Creating her own version of the TV series A Different World JaSaun graduated from the illustrious Howard University, and holds a Masters Degree from USC.
A 20 year career as a content executive and producer JaSaun has overseen innovative TV, Film and digital projects with brands including Viacom, OWN, Facebook and Spotify. JaSaun was a Co-Executive Producer for The Nod with Brittany & Eric a daily culture series on Quibi, and producer of the feature length documentary In Our Mother’s Gardens premiering on Netflix in May 2021. JaSaun is sought after for producing experimental films with fine artists.
Joshua E. Nelson
Co-Producer
Joshua E. Nelson is a multi-hyphenated storyteller with a deep passion for the legacy and future of black and brown people across the diaspora. In Northwest Philadelphia, “born and raised”, having majored in theater from its magnet Creative and Performing Arts High School, Joshua was awarded NBC 10's "Most Dedicated Student to the Arts" in 2006. Joshua decided to pursue a bachelor's degree in Theater Arts at the illustrious Howard University where he studied under the likes of Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad and Al Freeman. There he found himself writing, directing and producing projects for up to thousands of people while embodying different characters on the stage. A few of his credits soon after graduation are with the John F. Kennedy Center’s MFA Playwriting, Page2Stage and Young Director’s Festival in Washington D.C. His regional acting credits are with Discovery Theater, The Kennedy Center, African American Continuum Theater Company, Adventure Theater, Lincoln Theater, Wilma Theater, People’s Light & Theater and off-broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company which fast-tracked him to screentest for Hollywood films. This evolved him to gain behind the scenes experience with networks such as Nickelodeon, NBC, BET, ABC, NBA, VH1, LOGO and MTV to name a few. One of his most recent proud experiences was serving as a Dream Director within the Philadelphia School District.
Hakim Pitts
Associate Producer
Hakim Pitts is a multi-award winning, Black genderqueer creative entrepreneur crafting at the nexus of visual culture, community development & wellness, social justice, & spiritual activism. Utilizing this interdisciplinary practice, their mission is two fold: to resource people, communities, and organizations with theoretical and pragmatic tools to create, sustain and manifest their best; and to use fine arts and media to (re)craft works that carefully explore notions of power, self made identity, ritual & embodiment, and formations of Black sociality.
Sheniqua "Niq" Lewis
Editor
Niq is an award-winning editor, visual storyteller and a true 80's baby. Her family moved from Brooklyn to Harlem in the early '90s, and it was there at the Schomburg library, reading the words of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, that she began to understand the power that came with telling our own stories as black people, unapologetically.
Niq attended Long Island University and the Art Institute of NYC to study filmmaking and production and got her first break as a Casting Producer for reality tv for networks like FoxTV, Food Network, UPN, and NBC. She transitioned into post-production, working as an Editor at Vice media, garnering awards and nominations from Promax, the Clios, and the Shorty Awards. Her work for Vice has also received write-ups and reviews in Variety, Ad-Age, Rolling Stones, and Vogue, to name a few.
Since 2019 Niq has worked independently, and on collaborative projects, to create short and long-form visuals that are centered in, champion, and celebrate the complexities of black and brown stories. In Our Mothers' Garden is her first feature documentary film and she's truly humbled by the opportunity to help bring these beautifully nuanced narratives to life.
Shawn Peters
Director of Photography
Shawn Peters is a storyteller who has happened to have many careers and a long road in between stories. The many lives have included a stint in Corporate America, a Partnership in a thriving IT company, a partnership in a Record Label, a music festival founder and curator, finally he has landed where he intended to after graduate school, as a filmmaker and Director of photography. Shawn began his formal higher education at Morehouse College where he was an English Major along with studying Cinematography with the legendary Dr. Ikelberg. He went on the get a full scholarship at the University of South Carolina to pursue a MA in Media Arts and Photography. It’s a long story how Shawn left filmmaking in his 20s to go into business and how he returned in his 30s to pursue his original love. He started shooting music videos for artists like Pharoahe Monch, Blitz the Ambassador, Meshelle Williams, Bilal, Kendrick Lamar and D’Angelo. He has worked on narrative features and shorts with Terence Nance, Sebastian Silva, Laura Colella, Raafi Rivero, and is about to lens the Netflix original feature Undergroud directed by Gerard McMurray. These films have premiered at Sundance, The Rotterdam International Film Festival. Berlin Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.
Sekiya Dorsett
Director of Photography
GLAAD Award winning filmmaker, Sekiya Dorsett, is dedicated to telling the stories of women of color. Her award winning documentary “The Revival: Women and the Word,” is distributed by Women Make Movies. In 2020, her 4-part documentary, Stonewall 50: The Revolution, in partnership with NBC News and NBCOut, won a GLAAD Media Award and the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalist for Excellence in Digital Journalism. Dorsett's work has been featured at the Tribeca Film Festival, Urbanworld Film Festival and Outfest Film Festival to name a few. She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia.
Kirby Griffin
Additional Cinematographer
Kirby Griffin is a cinematographer and street photographer from the West Baltimore area of Maryland. In 2014, Kirby would stumble across a production company by the name of sixpointpictures, headed by Jamar Jones, where he began to delve deeper into the industry. Here, he found a home amongst a handful of other fellow artists, who were all also self-taught, and from the same environment. Kirby has worked for networks such as BET, Revolt TV, and HBO. He went on to work with the same artist he studied rigorously, including Bradford Young, Shawn Peters, Malik Sayeed, Arthur Jafa, and Terence Nance, all by way of the amazing Elissa Blount Moorhead of TNEG.
Despite knowing that Los Angeles is still considered home base of cinema, Kirby made a conscious decision to stay in Baltimore and tell the stories of people who would otherwise have their image exploited, or not recognized at all. Kirby is still a vital part of sixpointpictures as they continue growing and work to demystify filmmaking for those throughout Baltimore City who are not able to afford schooling.
Willard Hill
Score
Willard Hill is a Recording Artist, Performer, Producer, and Film Composer.
He is a graduate of St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, and Howard University in Washington, DC. He’s worked in radio at Clear Channel and WHUR in Washington D.C., Quad Studios and Platinum Sound Studio in NYC, and BET Creative Services in New York and Los Angeles— where he is currently based.
When he’s not working on new releases or a film project, he serves as Creative Director for Crescent City Creative, a Louisiana based non-profit organization that works to help local creatives on the world stage.
Nelson Nance
Score
Nelson Nance is a fearless artist who combines the courageous cacophony of the DaDa art movement with remnants of futurism and Funk.
With more than 30 music projects released under his various monikers (Norvis Junior, Nelson Bandela, NancieOver9000, DJAYTECHNOMUSTARD, O’Della Basura, etc.) and a growing portfolio of engaging artwork, it is clear that he is a progressive and daring voice to watch.
Over the course of his career, Nelson has diligently contributed as a producer, vocalist, arranger, writer and director to a wide array of prolific artistic endeavors from the likes of Bill T. Jones, Swarvy, Nappy Nina and Tony Allen. Recently he has contributed as a writer, director and composer on the critically acclaimed HBO series Random Acts of Flyness created by his brother Terence Nance. The show won a coveted Peabody Award upon the arrival of its first season and has been renewed for a second season where he will continue to be a part of its creation.
Safara Wanjagi
Animator and Collage Artist
Safara Wanjagi is a digital collage artist from Nairobi, Kenya. She creates surrealist art pieces that are inspired by the creativity of traditional African cultures. In particular, she is drawn to styles of dress, hairstyles, and patterns that have been largely phased away from everyday life and into the halls of museums. Her aim through her work is to keep these aesthetics alive in the everyday.
Bouba Dola
Animator
Bouba Dola was born in 1985 in Kinshasa, Congo.
He studied at HKU in Utrecht and is actually working as an artist in the Netherlands. His main artwork is digital art, such as drawings, music and videos.
Currently, Bouba is working on his first cinematic work.