“If your dream only includes you, it’s too small. ”
Our team.
Avril Speaks
Producer
Avril Speaks has been carving out her path as a bold, innovative storyteller for years, not only as a Producer and Director but also as a film mentor and advocate through Film Independent, the Sundance Institute, and Distribution Advocates, and formerly as a professor at Howard University. Avril has produced several award-winning films, including Jinn, which premiered at SXSW and won Special Jury Recognition for Writing, and the South African film African America, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and four African Movie Academy Awards. She also produced the documentary Black America Is…, which premiered at the Afrikana Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at various film festivals.
As a director and showrunner, Avril has worked with companies such as Now This and Vox Media Studios on docu-series such as Uprooted, Keep This Between Us, and Files of the Unexplained, which debuted as the #1 show on Netflix during its entire first week. Avril is a recipient of the inaugural Dear Producer Award, the Sundance Momentum Fellowship, and is a recent recipient of the Film Independent/Netflix Amplifier Fellowship. She is a recurring creative advisor for Global Media Makers, and is one of the founding members of Distribution Advocates, where she hosts the podcast Distribution Advocates Presents. Avril is also a board member for the Black TV and Film Collective.
Loria King
Director/Producer
Loria King is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker and photographer dedicated to capturing nuanced stories around race, gender, culture, and ethnicity. She holds an M.F.A. in film and serves on the advisory board for the Global Institute for Black Girls in Film & Media and a Changemaker for Black Stock Footage.
Her passion for storytelling extends to education, where she has shared her real-world experience with students as a film professor. Beyond the classroom, she has also taught in Africa, Asia, and South America, guiding college students as they produced narrative-based documentaries for non-governmental organizations.
Loria’s project, Black America Is…, an exploration of Black identity, was selected for the 2020 Film Independent/CNN Docuseries Intensive and supported by Black House Foundation and Level Ground. Her body of work, including her latest documentary, CURRENT: A Descendant’s Journey for Truth, challenges and critically examines false narratives surrounding women, Black people, Indigenous peoples, and people of color.