Wes Andre Goodrich, Winter Dunn, Omar Kamara & Anndi Jinelle Liggett among 10 BIPOC Rising Voices Filmmakers To Debut Films at Tribeca
Recently, Indeed, the world’s #1 job site and a leading hiring platform, along with actor, producer and Emmy-award winning writer Lena Waithe, her company Hillman Grad, and Doménica and Constanza Castro’s 271 Films, announced 10 filmmakers participating in Season 4 of Indeed’s Rising Voices.
Rising Voices uncovers, invests in, and amplifies Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) filmmakers across the US to share their unique perspectives on issues that impact work. The Season 4 filmmakers will create short films about the future of work which will premiere at the Tribeca Festival in New York City in June 2024.
Season 4 received 40% more applications from filmmakers across the country, signaling the program’s growing reputation as a significant career accelerator for filmmakers from underestimated communities. This season’s 10 selected filmmakers are:
Four of the 10 winning filmmakers are Black (Wes Andre Goodrich, Winter Dunn, Omar Kamara and Anndi Jinelle Liggett) and were selected out of hundreds of applicants who submitted a script for a short story about the “future of work.” As a result, the class will now receive $100K to turn their script into a short film that will debut at Tribeca in June. Additionally, these filmmakers will receive invaluable mentorship from Waithe and her production company and other beacons in the film industry on their journey in bringing their ideas/visions to life in cinematic form.
Rising Voices is going four years strong and since inception has provided over 2,000 jobs from the films created and continues to advocate and celebrate underrepresented storytellers from Black, AAPI, Latine and LGBTQ+ communities to further representation in the industry at large.
This season’s 10 selected filmmakers are:
Anndi Jinelle Liggett
Anndi Jinelle Liggett is a writer and director based in NYC, born and raised in Northern Virginia. Her magical-realist short film, Jelly,narrated by André Holland, was awarded the Oscar-qualifying HBO Short Film Award at the 2023 American Black Film Festival. The film has since been accepted into 16 U.S festivals, received nine nominations, and won five additional awards including the prestigious Jury Award for Best African-American Student Film by the Directors Guild of America.
Anndi has participated in various fellowships. Most recently, she workshopped her coming-of-age feature script through the 2023 New York Stage & Film Filmmaker’s Workshop. In addition, she is a past directing fellow for the Gotham Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film, a 2021 BAFTA Scholar, a 2021 fellow for Diverso’s Minority Report and was an intern for HBO’s Original Programming department. Currently, Anndi is completing her thesis year at NYU Tisch’s graduate film program and is represented by 3 Arts Entertainment.
Jean Liu
Kelly Yu
Kevin Luu & Kelly Luu
Manuel Del Valle
Mercedes Arturo
Omar Kamara
Omar S. Kamara, a writer and director, is a first-generation Sierra Leonean American, Virginia native, and graduate of the College of William and Mary and AFI. His debut feature film, AFRICAN GIANTS, which he independently wrote, directed, and produced, will have its World Premiere at Slamdance Film Festival in 2024.
His previous short film, MASS AVE, won the Grand Prize at the DGA Student Film Awards, was named a Finalist in HBO’s Short Film Competition at ABFF, and was nominated for the Grand Prix at Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival. The film was licensed by HBO and is currently streaming on HBO Max. In addition to winning the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award at AFI, he was selected as an inaugural Resident for the Rideback Rise BIPOC Content Accelerator. Kamara’s films touch on his first-generation experiences and strive to highlight and honor the African Diaspora.
Robin D’Oench
Wesley Goodrich
Wes Andre Goodrich is a Brooklyn-bred writer and director. Since graduating from Columbia University’s MFA Film Program, he has developed a TV pilot: HERETICS, a dark comedy that follows three twenty-something megachurch janitors: Dre, Cash & Julie, who stumble upon the dead body of the Senior Pastor. Wes is also on the festival circuit run with two shorts: SPEAK UP BROTHA!, a musical romance in the style of 90s Black films, that won The Grand Jury Award for Short Films at Dances with Films 2023, and PALM SUNDAY, a southern gothic film about a Jamaican man attempting to assimilate into an all-white church in 1970s Raleigh, North Carolina. PALM SUNDAY won the Short Film Grand Jury at Calgary International Film Festival.
Wes is the recipient of the Columbia University Dean’s Grant and The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Grant for the film PALM SUNDAY and was a 2022 Diverso Black Writers in Focus Fellow. His films have screened at New Orleans Film Festival, Calgary International Film Festival, New Hampshire Film Festival, Cleveland Int’l Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, American Black Film Festival, Morehouse Human Rights Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, Dances with Films LA and Longleaf Film Festival. Wes was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the 2023 New Faces of Film.
Winter Dunn
Winter Dunn is an NAACP award-winning director, producer and actress with a passion for depicting universal stories through the lens of BIPOC voices. Her most recent short film, DEAR MAMA… premiered at SXSW and was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Short Film (Live Action). DEAR MAMA… is currently streaming on The New Yorker. Her debut short film JUNEBUGpremiered at the American Black Film Festival, made its television debut on FOX Soul, and is currently streaming on Tubi and Issa Rae Presents HOORAE. She produced Numa Perrier’s debut feature film, JEZEBEL, which premiered at SXSW 2019, won Best Narrative Feature at the American Black Film Festival and is currently streaming on Netflix via Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY. Dunn has directed multiple digital content formats, including web series and editorial videos. Her celebrity video features for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Architectural Digest, GQ, Allure, and other media brands have garnered a celebrity feature list that includes Viola Davis, Sarah Paulson, Lena Waithe, Kim Kardashian, Billie Eilish and others. Dunn graduated from the Chicago Academy for the Arts and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Fordham University Lincoln Center.