Director Boots Riley selects Indie Memphis grant winners
Memphis artist Zaire Love, St. Louisbased filmmaker Damon Davis and cultural critic Seren Sensei of Washington are the winners of this year’s Indie Memphis residencies and fellowships for Black screenwriters, selected by movie-and-music artist Boots Riley.
“There was such an abundance of talent to choose from that it got me excited for the future of filmmaking,” said Riley, whose debut feature film as a writer-director, 2018’s “Sorry to Bother You,” was infused with the sharp racial and social commentary that characterizes his hip-hop project, The Coup. “I chose the three winners based on their audacity of vision, their passion, and that they are films that I can’t wait to see.”
Administered through Indie Memphis’ Black Creators Forum, the program is now in its second year. The first year’s winners were chosen by Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning maker of “Moonlight.” This year’s winners were announced July 8.
Davis and Sensei are the winners of the Black Filmmaker Residency for Screenwriting, which provides twomonth Memphis residencies (with free housing) and $7,500 unrestricted cash grants to two writers, to create scripts for films that can be shot in Memphis.
Davis — whose work has been collected by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and exhibited at Art Basel Miami — is the co-director of the timely “Whose Streets?,” a 2017 documentary that covers the Ferguson, Missouri, protests that followed the police killing of Michael Brown. (The film is currently available on Hulu.)
A specialist in race, culture and sociopolitical theory, Sensei is an essayist, critic and filmmaker whose two-season Youtube channel and online documentary series “The [Black] Americans” have attracted millions of viewers.
Love, meanwhile, won the $7,500 cash grant that Indie Memphis gives to a local writer. The creator of numerous short films (her website is zairelove.com ). “I’m making creative cornbread meant to nourish, honor, and amplify the souls of black folks in the South,” Love states, on her website.
In addition, Indie Memphis announced July 8 the creation of a third major grant: The Black Creators Forum Non-fiction Filmmaking grant, which will provide $5,000 in cash to a local Black filmmaker to create a short nonfiction film. The grant will be presented in partnership with the local arts organization The CLTV (The Collective), and will be funded by Memphis filmmaker Mark Jones.
“This new grant... continues our goal of making Memphis a hub of original, creative and truly independent film for Black artists,” said Miriam Bale, Indie Memphis artistic director.