About Us

Director: South Africa - Rainbow Nation

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In 2015, a semi-retired CPA/realtor started a youtube channel, 5 years later, her two channels had 13 million views. Wishing to prove the original videos are not Tube junks, she sent a few late 2016. 7 years later, she got 1980 IMDb awards including 36 Remi Awards from Worldfest Houston.

To overcome funding challenges every Indie filmmakers faced, she wrote, edit and produced most of her 700+ films.

Director: Mali: The Quest for Peace

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Rich Mckeown is the recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award, The President's Volunteer Service Award and The State of Maryland's Governor's Citation in 2023. He is founder and president of KoolKidz Television & Publishing, LLC. Established in 2005, KoolKidz has garnered over 300 Film Festival selections and awards worldwide including his film American beatboxer, inducted in the Harvard Hip Hop Archives and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library & Archives. KoolKidz films have been broadcast on the Revolt TV, The Urban Movie Channel, the Education Channel, Tubi, as well as the East Africa Television’s Kids Time Program. The KoolKidz children’s DVD’s are available in libraries throughout the United States and Canada.” Rich is the sole composer and music producer on all the early projects. He brings 15 years of experience working for publishing and entertainment giants Prentice Hall/Simon & Schuster; Sony Video; Boosey & Hawkes; Bertelsmann Music Group & HBO combined with an additional 12 years in sales.
As a public speaker and educator, Rich has conducted several workshops for the National Black Children’s Development Institute in Silver Springs, Maryland and has presented to the students and faculty at Columbia College in Chicago, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and had four Film/Beatbox workshop residencies with Harvard Office of the Arts/Learning from Performers Program.
In 2018, Rich was named Arts Hub Leader for the Mandela Washington Fellows who attend Wagner College on Staten Island, NY. He became a 2019 Mandela Washington Fellow Reciprocal Awardee for instructing a 10 day micro-budget filmmaking workshop in Equatorial Guinea. In 2021 Rich was awarded a US Embassy Diplomacy Grant in Guinea-Conakry to teach and set up a film department at the Espace Cultural de Siba Fassou, an artists based NGO and the Institut Supérieur des Arts Mory Kanté, both located in Dubréka. Rich was awarded a second Diplomacy Grant to return to Dubréka and further his work and program. His 3rd Diplomacy grant is from the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali where he will be producing the inaugural Bamako Films for Peace Symposium & Workshop at the U.S. Embassy in Bamako and Le Conservatoire des Arts et Multimedia Balla Fasseké Kouyaté, in June of 2023. Rich completed the first half his 4th Public Diplomacy grant in November of 2023 and will return in 2024 for the 2-part program of The “Films for a Bright Future for Guinea’s Marginalized Communities” program which will be conducted in all three of the American Corners in Guinea culminating in a large community screening in the capital of Conakry.

Director: Fisantekraal

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Liziwe Damba is a South African director who grew up in the Khayelitsha community. She's a writer/director/editor with great strengths in storytelling. She has studied at Film School Africa College.

EP: Perfect Angel 

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French American man originally from Haiti, James Benjamin Shannon is a family man, a business man and proud Executive Producer for several projects attached to name talents. Currently with Eric Roberts and soon with Michelle Coltrane, first born of John and Alice Coltrane as well as Calista Carrradine, first born of David Carradine.

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Director:Harriet Tubman | From the Railroad to a Spy

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A native-born New Yorker, Luana M. Graves Sellars, quickly discovered that weather wise, she was really "a mis-placed Floridian". After a career in advertising as a media buyer, music promotions and marketing and owning two large capacity preschools, even though she has a degree in Journalism and Black History, she wasn’t prepared to live on Hilton Head Island, one of the most culturally rich and historic areas of the South. A passion for her Gullah Geechee roots led her to become a cultural influencer and preservationist through her writing, which is focused on educating others, as well as documenting Gullah culture, its history, and people. In 2021, she started her own company, Sankofa Communications and expanded her content creation into visual media, where she also writes, directs, and produces culturally focused video shorts and documentaries. To date, Luana has written, produced, directed, and voiced five historic documentaries: Freedom Day | Exploring the Families of Historic Mitchelville, Juneteenth | The Birth of Freedom, Seeking | The Gullah Religious Tradition, US Colored Troops | Stories of Courage, Determination and Survival. Her passion for preserving the culture includes raising funds to protect historic Gullah land as the Founder of the nonprofit(s) Lowcountry Gullah and the Lowcountry Gullah Foundation. Lowcountry Gullah was established to document and educate people about the rich significance of the culture and its role in American history and society today. The Foundation was formed to support the overall Lowcountry Gullah mission, and specifically focuses on preserving what’s left of historic Gullah land through a proactive approach, guidance and education.

A self-described community activist and cultural influencer, Luana spends most of her days working towards "residential equality" for Hilton Head Island's local Gullah community as one of the Native Island Leaders and a frequent speaker on sustaining Gullah culture. In 2019, she founded the Lowcountry Gullah Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds to protect and preserve historic Gullah land for future generations. As a keynote speaker and community activist, she is doing her part to sustain and preserve Gullah Geechee culture for future generations.

It’s so important that we learn from the past to improve the future. So much history, especially Black & Gullah history, has been hidden from textbooks. She tells the untold stories that educate and inspire people to understand more about who they are.

Her passion for her Gullah Geechee roots led her to become a cultural influencer and preservationist through her writing and podcast, which is focused on educating others, as well as documenting Gullah culture, its history, and people. In 2021, she started her own company, Sankofa Communications and expanded her content creation into visual media, where she also writes, directs, voices and produces culturally focused video shorts and documentaries. To date, she is the complete content creator for five documentaries: Freedom Day | Exploring the Families of Historic Mitchelville, Juneteenth | The Birth of Freedom, Seeking | The Gullah Religious Tradition, Harriet Tubman | From The Railroad to a Spy and Colored Troops of the Civil War | Courage. Determination. Survival. - Film Festival Selection Nominations from Bill Johnson Black Film Festival 2024 and Documentaries Without Borders Nominee 2024.

The Harriet Tubman documentary premiered on PBS in April of 2023 and received a Selection Nomination(s) from the AfroSouth Film Festival 2023, Bill Johnson Black Film Festival 2024, Documentaries Without Borders Nominee 2024.

Film Festival DIrector

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CARLISS BELL, of Creole descent, is a mother of two amazing daughters, grandmother, entrepreneur, self-taught in many ways, soon to graduate her Masters from the Business School at Pepperdine University. She has over 35yrs of employment in Business Mgmt at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

 

She is a Producer and the Director of the Africa USA International Film Festival and in this function, serves as a connector and facilitator. Africa USA International Film Festival's primary agenda is to foster films, curate documentaries and align stories into the film festival. Africa USA Film Festival strives to align, develope, distribute, and open opportunities for the filmmakers to get connected with new talent from abroad, using the film schools in Africa and the USA.

 

Carliss Bell's Mentor, Patrick Bet-David (Insurance CEO) has shown her "it's not enough to be king, but to become a king maker!" Since meeting Patrick, she has become a licensed Life & Health Insurance Agent which speaks vastly into taking her world, her peers, and putting them into position to leave a legacy, creating more kings. 

 

Congresswoman Diane Watson, as one of her cherished mentors, has advised her on matters such as School and Community issues. Carliss' passion for Culture and Community Outreach has fashioned her into being an Activist. Carliss has rallied behind and alongside great community movements. 

 

At home, she is the family' chef cultivating her mother's Creole cuisines which is stemmed from "cooking with love" and all who know her call her Pocahontas, meaning "the peacemaker".