“I am a Black and Jewish queer woman who was born in Israel and grew up (from the age of six) in Philadelphia. When I was 12, my parents – dad was a Black civil rights administrator; mom was an Israeli artist – separated after experiencing years of discrimination as an interracial couple. This, along with my mother’s chronic poor health, propelled me to emotionally escape into movies, novels, music, and art. I grew increasingly interested in films, which seemed to me an amalgamation of all the arts and the greatest storytelling medium. It wasn’t until I was an undergraduate student at Temple University that I began to entertain the notion that I could be a filmmaker, or (even more outrageous) have a career in filmmaking. In addition to Showtime, my films have screened on Netflix, Amazon, UPN, BET-J, and PBS, as well as at Slamdance, the Jerusalem International Film Festival, the Hollywood Black Film Festival, the San Francisco Black Film Festival, and others. My film Kings is available on the compilation DVD Afrocentricity. I have been blessed to work with some of the best actors in film and television, including Russell Hornsby, Harry Lennix, Keith David, Mykelti Williamson, Ernie Hudson, Loretta Devine, Omari Hardwick, Kym Whitley and Juanita Jennings. I have also had amazing mentors throughout my career, including the filmmakers Robert Zemeckis, John Singleton, David Mamet, Rodrigo Garcia, and Katherine Dieckmann, the playwright Levy Lee Simon, and the visual artist Portia Munson.”