Sha-Shonna Rogers is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on cinematography and still photography from West Baltimore, Maryland and a recent Spring 2025 graduate of Morgan State University. She has been into the arts since she was child and has continued to grow in her passions over the years. She has made great achievements, in 2022 she was awarded a silver Telly award for her work on an Under Armour's Campaign (BE SEEN. BE HEARD. BE CELEBRATED) honoring HBCU athletes. In 2023 she was also one of two inaugural fellows for the fellowship HBCU Next founded by playwright and director, David E. Talbert in collaboration with the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Drawing inspiration from her everyday surroundings and the pulse of her community, her creative style is shaped by her environment, resulting in narratives that pulse with life and truth.

Ciara Franklin is an emerging film director based in Atlanta, Georgia. An African American interdisciplinary artist working in film, photography, and digital art, Franklin began their career at the Fox Theatre’s Rising Stars Academy. As Vice President to re-instate their school’s National Thespian Honor Society Troupe 4125 after 16 years in remission, Franklin fell in love with producing art at 16 before attending Spelman College’s first class of Documentary Filmmakers. Franklin developed an experimental filmmaking and independent documentary art practice under the tutelage of Anjanette Levert, Ayoka Chenzira, and Julie Dash. Franklin is an Adobe Certified Video Editor and currently serves as Communications Coordinator at RE:IMAGINE ATL where they are a teaching artist assistant for courses like EMERGE Social Media and RE:IMAGINE Journalism. This summer Franklin served as a Congressional Liaison with the Reconnecting Youth Campaigns, developing relationships with lawmakers and nonprofit coalitions to advocate for opportunity youth facing housing insecurity and limited access to employment. Currently honored in the 2025 Atlanta Mayor’s Pride Exhibit, Franklin is an Intersex documentarian reclaiming marred narratives through technology and performance.

Rock Jacquet (they/them) is a Louisiana Creole and Chicane filmmaker, artist, and cultural worker based between New Orleans and Brooklyn. Drawing from a lineage of land stewards, sharecroppers, and cattle ranchers, their work explores the entanglements of memory, land loss, identity, and environmental in/justice across the Gulf South. Working primarily in nonfiction, Rock creates experimental films rooted in family histories and inherited landscapes, drawing on oral storytelling traditions and archival research. Rock holds an undergraduate degree in Politics, Rights, and Development from New York University and is currently pursuing an MA in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at NYU.

Kennedy Dunning is an Atlanta-based, award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer whose work centers the inner lives of Black women and girls. Rooted in the South, her films are shaped by the women who raised her, the friends who ground her, and a devotion to telling stories often left at the margins. Kennedy is a graduate of Spelman College, where she majored in documentary filmmaking and minored in comparative women’s studies.

Robin Dylan Garcia is a Trans-femme, Mexican-American filmmaker and photographer born, raised, and based in Dallas, Texas. Having graduated from NYU’s Undergraduate Film program, Robin has worked on multiple short films as both director and writer, experimental and narrative, with her latest project, “The Apple Picker”, a 16mm short film shot in Portugal, currently in Post-Production. Drawing inspiration from her hometown and personal experience, Robin’s moving and still image works focuses on the passage of time, alienation, and memory in regard to the Hispanic/Queer experience, by telling stories that center on differing perspectives. She is currently a part of the Pegasus Media Group's Multimedia Apprenticeship Program.

Nicole Viloria is a Venezuelan writer-director whose work explores her queer journey, love tragedies, and Venezuelan roots. As a tragic poet with a vampire spirit, she stretches her limits during the day and dwells in her memories at night. Her directorial debut, "Paper Dreams," screened at Yale’s Student Film Festival and won Best Cinematography at the Ezra Stiles Film Festival. "Pichi," her Yale thesis short film, is in post-production. She is the Co-Executive Director of Diverso, a student-run 501(c)3 nonprofit that uplifts underrepresented student filmmakers, whose partners include SONY, Sundance, and Disney. She has also served as a development intern at Narval Films and Baobab Studios, where she assisted with staffing writers for a show slated for Disney+. After immigrating to Miami at 15, she earned an A.A. in English Literature from Miami Dade Honors College and later completed a B.A. in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Film from Yale University. When Nicole’s experiences become too cinematic for realism, she turns them into fiction.

Tevin Scott is a non-binary multidisciplinary artist from Charleston, SC. A graduate of Howard University, Tevin created his award winning HBCU series presentation, THE MECCA, which was licensed to Revolt TV. Tevin currently resides in Charlotte, NC, where he plans to build his own film studio under his production banner, RTS Vision.

Latoria Hicks is an Alabama-based filmmaker from Mississippi. Her work draws on memories growing up in the American South to paint multifaceted portraits of characters who find themselves on the outskirts of the world. In 2025, Latoria made her directorial debut, with Voices of the Academy. The award-winning documentary has screened across the country, connecting viewers through its exploration of language and culture. Through her films, she aims to build a sense of interconnectedness and to expand the amount of empathy we have for one another.