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With another successful Sundance Film Festival under their belts, The Blackhouse Foundation continues to pave the way for content creators of color. Co-founder, Brickson Diamond sat down with TheGrio to discuss what’s next and fill us in on a groundbreaking new program he and his team rolled out at this year’s festival in Park City, Utah.

On the festival’s opening night, Diamond announced that The Blackhouse Foundation has teamed up with The Independent Filmmaker Project (“IFP”) to launch the IFP-Blackhouse Multicultural Producers Lab, sponsored by HBO Corporate Social Responsibility Department. The partnership brings together IFP’s track record of developing creative talent with The Blackhouse Foundation’s success in bringing diversity to festivals like Sundance with increased access to and for exceptional writers, directors, and producers.

EXCLUSIVE: Brickson Diamond on how The Blackhouse Foundation brings black folks & black films to Sundance

A cohort of six (6) producers of innovative fiction and nonfiction projects (film, television, and digital media) were selected by IFP, Blackhouse, and HBO. These Fellows will participate in this year-long, collaborative program to expand the number of multicultural production companies; to increase their pipeline of content; and to support the sustainability of mid-career independent producers and the scale at which their projects and businesses operate. The first cohort of participating producers are all women, signaling all of the partner organizations’ focus on supporting female filmmakers.

The Fellows are Quan Lateef, Kiara Jones, JaSaun Buckner, Roche Jeffrey, Khaliah Neal, HaJ House, and Dahéli Hall.The Lab Leaders, who are committed to guiding their progress throughout the Lab, are award-winning film, TV and digital producer Effie Brown and award-winning film and stage producer Ron Simons.

The selected Fellows will take part in a series of intensive programs and workshops throughout the year, both at the “Made in NY” Media Center by IFP in New York and at HBO headquarters in Los Angeles. The program will culminate at IFP’s signature program, IFP Week 2019.

While the announcement was a huge surprise for attendees of this year’s festival, it was just one of the many exciting moments The Blackhouse Foundation served up. They hosted an incredible event with Amanda Seales who showed snippets of her HBO stand-up special, I Be Knowin’ while chatting with Bevy Smith and gave attendees a sneak peek of BET’s highly-anticipated series, American Soul. They also hosted a panel discussion with the cast and creators of OWN’s upcoming series, David Makes Man, which is sure to be one of the most talked-about shows to hit the small screen this year.

Check out our exclusive interview with Brickson Diamond to find out what’s next for The Blackhouse Foundation and how he and his team continue to make major strides for Black folks in film.

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