Hope Love Beauty

Ferguson Rises

Ferguson Rises is about struggle and hope, tragedy and transcendence. It is the story of a small town that suffered a powerful loss and became the flash point for a modern day civil rights movement.

It is also the filmmaker Mobolaji’s story – his journey to find a deeper truth about this now infamous city looks beyond the media fixation on violence and tragedy, and seeks answers to questions from his own painful past.

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Our Vision

Our goal at the Hope, Love and Beauty Project is to produce inspiring films and events that bring hope, healing, dignity and investment to communities in need across the globe. Ferguson Rises is the first in a series of films to be produced by the Hope, Love and Beauty Project.

The Team

Meet the talented, award-winning team behind the film...

Executive Producers

Sandra Evers Manley (Executive Producer) is the VP of Corporate Global Corporate Responsibility at Northrop Grumman, founder of Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center (BHERC) and Films with A Purpose. https://filmswithapurpose.net/about/

T. J. Martin (Executive Producer) is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning American filmmaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._J._Martin

David Oyelowo (Executive Producer) is an award-winning actor known for his role as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and many others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Oyelowo

Gigi Pritzker (Executive Producer) is a noted film producer, and philanthropist. She is a member of the Pritzker family. https://www.madisonwellsmedia.com/

J. Cole/Dreamville (Co-Executive Producer) is a grammy-winning rapper with tens of millions of followers world-wide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Cole

Aloe Blacc (Co-Executive Producer) is a chart topping singer, writer and philanthropist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe_Blacc

Carmen Anders (Co-Executive Producer): With a teaching career spanning nearly 20 years, Mexican-born Carmen Anders has dedicated her heart and energy to the education of adolescents in Los Angeles. She uses music, art and film to communicate the diverse expressions of the language and the cultures of the Spanish-speaking diaspora. As an actor and activist, Carmen is committed to supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives in and around the city she has called home for more than two decades. This is her first role as a Co-Executive Producer. Follow her @carmen_anders_official

Kai Bowe (Co-Executive Producer) was born in the Bronx and raised in Oakland, California and Malawi, Central Africa. Kai completed her BA in psychology at UCLA and attended Howard University School of Law. Upon graduating, she returned to Hollywood, where she moved into the reality television genre near its inception, casting NBC’s Emmy-winning Starting Over and producing for some of the most successful unscripted franchises, including America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway. Kai discovered her passion for documentary films when she was hired as a writer/producer for The Africa Channel. More recently, she was Supervising Producer for A&E’s Emmy-nominated LA Burning, EP/Showrunner of Resist (a documentary series that successfully thwarted the Los Angeles County’s plan to build two new jails), Co-EP of the Emmy-winning, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, and EP/Showrunner of Lifetime’s Hopelessly in Love. Currently, Kai is the Co-Executive Producer of Ferguson Rises, a feature doc about the murder of Mike Brown, and is the EP/Showrunner for a controversial, new documentary series for Showtime.

Mobolaji Olambiwonnu - Writer/Director/Producer

Mobolaji Olambiwonnu is the recipient of several awards including the prestigious Directors Guild of America Student Award for his MFA thesis The Visit, which he made while attending the American Film Institute (AFI).

In addition, Olambiwonnu was invited to screen his film as part of the Kodak Emerging Filmmakers showcase at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. He won 2 Hermes Awards for 6 commercials he directed for the Los Angeles Metro's new 1.8 billion dollar rail line to the LAX airport.

He has held positions as producer, cameraman, and director for companies and organizations such as Sierra Club, Lions Gate, Paramount, Discovery and HBO. Olambiwonnu has also worked in the fields of education, conflict resolution, economic development and campaign organizing. His community-based experience is not only the conscience behind his work, but the driving force behind his filmmaking choices.

He is currently producing content for various corporations and nonprofits like Metrolink and Frank Gehry's non-profit, turnaround arts, and is working on a documentary on how people find hope, love and beauty in the midst of tragedy. Olambiwonnu’s goal is to use cinema as a tool to share diverse cultural and political experiences, critique the superficial conditions that divide us, and accentuate the merits of shedding our prejudices.

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Tanayi Seabrook - Producer

Tanayi Seabrook has performed multiple roles in front of and behind the camera over the past 15 years. She started her journey in documentary film with Blackside, Inc., producers of the landmark PBS/WGBH civil rights documentary series Eyes On the Prize.

There she worked on two Blackside documentary series for PBS/WGBH, I'll Make Me A World: A Century of African American Art and Artists as well as This Far By Faith: African American Spiritual Journeys.

Seabrook moved on to work as an associate producer with Peter Jones Productions and helped produce multiple documentaries for A&E Biography, including Eclipsed by Death: The Life of River Phoenix, All the Presidents' Kids and Times Square: Glamour & Grit, among others.

She collaborated with Producer/Director Mobolaji Olambiwonnu to create successful campaigns for Los Angeles transportation power houses, Metro and MetroLink. The work for Metro earned them 2 Hermes Awards.

Seabrook believes in the potentiality of storytelling, in all its modalities, to help change the world for the better.

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TJ Odebunmi - Producer

TJ Odebunmi comes to the Hope, Love and Beauty project with extensive experience as a writer and story analyst. In 2002, Odebunmi leveraged his vast business, political and media contacts in Africa to assist in the successful launch of The Africa Channel, a cable television network dedicated to the broadcast of original African programming, a first of its kind in the United States.

Odebunmi was involved in the network’s fundraising, program acquisitions, marketing and content production. Prior to that, Odebunmi worked for Cinergi Pictures Entertainment, and in the music video and commercial advertising industries.

In 2006, Odebunmi left the entertainment business to assist in efforts to rebuild the war torn nation of Sierra Leone. While living in West Africa, Odebunmi labored on behalf of advocacy groups dedicated to the feeding and welfare of abandoned children, and led several funding drives to provide elementary schools with furniture, computers, and other essential supplies.

Despite a sudden, seemingly inexorable battle with acute depression and anxiety, Odebunmi draws hope and inspiration from contributing to a project about humans experiencing transformation after tragedy.

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Daisy Mo - Producer

Daisy Mo is a writer who has studied screenwriting and focused on fiction over the past ten years. Her magical realist style of writing and thinking helps her to imagine what is possible in seemingly impossible situations.

At the East-West Center in Hawaii, Daisy helped to resolve inter-cultural conflicts. As a city planner, she has studied and written about what it takes to create a fulfilling sense of community. As a person of mixed race, she has learned that people are more alike than they are different, and that openness and curiosity can do much to break down fears and stereotypes.

Daisy is also a West Point Graduate, and a former Captain in the United States Army.

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Lisa Smithline - Producer

Lisa Smithline is an innovative leader in the cause marketing field. As an impact producer and marketing strategist Lisa creates dynamic multi-platform distribution campaigns using film and new media. Lisa's current career integrates a commitment to social change with an extensive background in film, television and commercial production. As a founding partner of Brave New Films and director of alternative marketing at Focus Features, Lisa pioneered new models of community-based distribution. She has produced successful marketing campaigns for many popular films and projects including Academy Award nominated TROUBLE THE WATER, Stacy Peralta's CRIPS & BLOODS, DIRT! The Movie, San Francisco Opera’s CINEMA SERIES, Joe Berlinger’s CRUDE, Howard Zinn’s THE PEOPLE SPEAK, HEIST, HARMONY, GIVE UP TOMORROW, DETROPIA, AMERICAN WINTER, MARMATO & BOOM BUST BOOM. Lisa has been a featured speaker on marketing and distribution at leading conferences including American Film Market, Sundance Film Festival, Westdocs, Netroots Nation and Center For Social Media’s Making Your Media Matter.

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Jerry A. Henry - Cinematographer

Jerry A. Henry received his MFA from UCLA Film School with an emphasis on documentaries, cinematography, and digital media. Since graduating, he has shot and produced over 300 reality television programs and documentary series including Made, 16 & Pregnant and True Life for MTV News & Docs, as well as programs for PBS, National Geographic, A&E, Bravo, VH-1, NBC, ABC and the Discovery Channel among many others.

Documentary feature credits include The Grace Lee Project, David Zeiger’s Sir, No Sir! and Winter Soldier, the Academy Award nominated Exit Through The Gift Shop, American revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs and Sundance winner City of Gold: the story of L.A. Times food critic Jonathan Gold.

Jerry’s award-winning short documentaries I Promise Africa and Something Other Than Other have screened in over 100 film festivals around the world and garnered him a Directors Guild of America (DGA Student Filmmaker Award). He was also awarded the Gordon Parks Emerging African American Filmmaker Award at the 27th annual IFP Market and received The Media That Matters Film Festival Tolerance Education Award for Something Other Than Other.

Jerry’s visual talents have taken him to Sao Paulo, Brazil to shoot the film BRASILINTIME by renowned photographer B+, director of KEEPINTIME.

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Faisal Azam - Editor

Faisal Azam is an award-winning film editor, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, and raised in the Middle East, Faisal graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley with a degree in Rhetoric, and worked in advertising before embarking on a career in film.

His work includes the Oscar-nominated documentary short St. Louis Superman; the indie feature Black Dog, Red Dog, produced by James Franco; Without Shepherds, a Grand Prize winner for Best Film and Best Documentary at the Brooklyn Film Festival; and Salar, which won Best Dramatic Short at the Austin Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award.

Faisal has also edited television shows and documentaries for National Geographic, Dan Rather Reports, USA Network, Al Jazeera, FiveThirtyEight, and Sports Illustrated. His work has been featured at Sundance, Clermont-Ferrand, Palm Springs, Slamdance, Hot Docs and BFI London, and in The New York Times and Washington Post.

Faisal currently serves as an Emmy Awards judge; was selected as part of the inaugural cohort for the Diversity in the Edit Room program, an initiative of the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship that promotes the careers of exceptional minority editors; and co-wrote H8, a TV pilot script that won Second Place in WeScreenplay’s 2018 TV pilot contest. As a screenwriter, Faisal is represented by Zero Gravity Management.

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Sion Dey - Composer

Sion Dey is a multi instrumentalist and composer. He wrote the music for I Am Dying, a documentary special for The National Geographic Channel helmed by Academy Award® winning directors TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay. The documentary chronicles people’s final days before death, celebrating their lives and legacy through verité footage, home movies, photos and interviews with friends and family. Producers included Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck and Mary Lisio of Ridley’s Scott’s production company, Scott Free.

He composed the music for the Darren Aronofsky helmed campaign for the New York Times; short films chronicling the lives of four photojournalists in the search to uncover the truth within various aspects of conflict and displacement. This went onto garner multiple accolades including the Grand Prix for Craft at the Cannes Lions.

He scored Zipper Brothers produced experimental documentary Ramblin’ Freak; director Parker Smith’s debut feature that premiered at SXSW which the Indiewire Critics’ survey named as one of the best docs of the festival.

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Andre Akil - Associate Producer

Andre Akil brings many years of creative experience to our project as a content developer and producer. Further, a skilled content writer, Akil has lent the power of his pen and vision to producing other social awareness campaigns such as for Amnesty International and the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee.

Additionally, Andre Akil is a screenwriter and producer of television content.

A former resident of St. Louis, he currently lives in Hollywood, CA.

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Obioha Nwokorie - Associate Producer

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Khalfani Love - Associate Producer

Khalfani Love is an intuitive man of many gifts who is passionate about inspiring the world through stylish, powerful, and positive media that helps people reach their greatest potential.

Love is an L.A. native who spent a lot of his time schooling in various parts of the country (primarily in the South). And he is a Clark-Atlanta University Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Dual Degree undergrad alum.

Currently back in California, he's a Sr. Project & Operations Manager for a Tech startup company, by day, and a student Filmmaker and Musician (Vocalist, Guitar, Piano, Drums) by night.

His goal is to refine and formulate his Directing skills - through working with other Directors on as many positive productions as possible - to hopefully then create an innumerable amount of art that spreads Love, Awakens Minds, and Fosters True Social Change.