the expanders

presented by

YOu’re CORDIALly invited to an evening

RECOGNIZING BLACK LEADERS IN ENTERTAINMENT AND NON-FICTION STORYTELLING WHO EXPAND OUR CULTURE THROUGH INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY BUILDING.

  • NOVEMBER 7

    7:00 PM - 10:00 PM

    OPEN BAR. LITE BITES.

    PRIVATE RESIDENCE, NYC (LOCATION UPON RSVP)

    RSVP

host committee

Chana Ginelle Ewing
Alece Oxendine

Chana Ginelle Ewing

Event Chair,

Board Member

Alece Oxendine

Board Member

Reggie Williams

Co-Executive Director

Lande Yoosef

Co-Executive Director

HOSTED BY YANCE FORD

Yance Ford is an Oscar-nominated director and producer based in New York City. His debut film Strong Island won the 2017 Sundance U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award, the Gotham Award for Best Documentary, and the Black Film Critics Circle Award for Best Doc. Strong Island was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 90th Academy Awards where Ford made history as the first transgender director nominated for an Oscar. Strong Island went on to win the Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Film and was nominated for a George Foster Peabody Award. 

At the 2018 Cinema Eye Honors Ford became the first nominee ever to win Best Direction, Best Debut, and Best Feature.

His work can be seen in the FX series Pride, the Netflix series Trial by Media, the Apple+ series The Me You Can’t See, the Showtime comedy Work In Progress, and the documentary The Color of Care on The Smithsonian Channel. Ford was a staff writer in the HBO mini-room for the adaptation of the bestselling novel The Vanishing Half. 

Yance is a former Series Producer at the documentary anthology series POV where, during his tenure with the series, his curatorial work at POV garnered 5 Emmy Awards and 16 Emmy nominations. 

Ford is a MacDowell Colony Fellow,  Sundance Institute Fellow, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. His work has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Creative Capital, Cinereach, The Ford Foundation, and others. 

Ford is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America. His next feature film is a Netflix Original documentary set for release in 2023. 

HONOREES

HONOREES

THE PROGRAMMER: KAREN MCMULLEN

Karen McMullen is the Head of Programming for the Urbanworld Film Festival, Senior Programmer at DOC NYC Film Festival, and a Features Programmer at Tribeca Festival. She has been a screener for the Sundance Film Festival and was the founding Director of Programming for the TIDE Film Festival. She has served as a juror for the Pan African, Trinidad + Tobago, Cleveland International and Bentonville Film Festivals, and has sat on the review committees for The Gotham Awards, Carey Institute, Black Public Media, and the Cinema Eye Awards. Karen moderates panels and leads filmmaker interviews for the HBO, Netflix, Apple, New York African Film Festival, IFC, Pure Non Fiction, and others, and appears on television and radio as a media expert. She has editing credits on numerous features, documentaries, and short films and was a professor of film post-production at Long Island University for ten years. Karen is a graduate of Brown University with concentrations in French Studies and International Relations.

THE STORYTELLER: RASHID SHABAZZ

Rashid Shabazz is a visionary cultural communications strategist and advocate. He is the inaugural Executive Director of Critical Minded, a grantmaking and advocacy initiative founded in 2017 by the Ford Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation to support cultural critics of color in the United States. Critical Minded is devoted to fostering a vibrant cultural ecosystem that celebrates the multiplicity of perspectives from critics of color. Shabazz joins Critical Minded following a role as the Chief Marketing and Storytelling Officer for Color of Change, where he led the organization’s charge against the limited and tokenizing mainstream media landscape. 

Shabazz is most known in the arts and culture community for leading initiatives that combat racial and gender injustice, advance education reform, and reimagine the American criminal justice system. He received his Bachelor’s degree in English from George Mason University, and holds a Master’s degree in African studies from Yale University, and a Master’s from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter.

Sonya Childress

THE BUILDER: SONYA CHILDRESS

Sonya Childress is a cultural strategist who believes in the transformative power of film. She co-directs the Color Congress, an ecosystem-builder that resources, supports, and connects organizations led by people of color that serve nonfiction filmmakers, leaders, and audiences of color across the US and territories, with Sahar Driver. As Senior Fellow with the Perspective Fund, she supported projects that moved the documentary field towards equity and transparency. She spent two decades leading impact campaigns and distribution strategies at Active Voice, California Newsreel and Firelight Media, where she piloted a fellowship for impact producers of color. She is a board member of the Center for Cultural Power, a member of the Documentary Accountability Working Group, a working group member for 'The Lens Reflected' study, and was a 2015 Rockwood JustFilms Fellow. Her writing has been commissioned by Documentary Magazine, SEEN Journal, the Ford Foundation & MacArthur Foundation.

SUPPORT BLACK FILM.

THE EXPANDERS is a ticketed fundraiser to support the ongoing programming efforts of Black Film Space, including its Screenwriting Retreat, Accountability Groups, public partnerships (New York City Housing Authority), and more. Serving an active community of 3000 emerging filmmakers nationwide, Black Film Space sees collective growth as key to expanding opportunities, creativity, and representation on all screens.