Celebrated director and executive producer Rob Hardy believes that family is the foundation of success.
Rob is the CEO of Rainforest Entertainment and is known for his groundbreaking work on hit shows such as STARZ’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan, The CW’s All American, and BET Network’s The Quad to name a few. His directorial genius has been recognized by top industry publications with Entertainment Weekly naming episodes of Power and All American to ‘The 30 Best TV Episodes” in 2018 and 2020. He continues to direct some of TV’s hottest shows, including Prodigal Son, Evil, Shameless, Black-ish, The Flash, and Grey’s Anatomy.
A 2014 NAACP Image Award nominee, Rob is credited for being a foundational force in Atlanta’s thriving television and film production industry. He co-founded nonprofit The Amazing Stories Foundation to train and place apprentices from diverse backgrounds on film and TV sets.
AAFCA salutes Rob Hardy at 2017 Synergy Awards
Rob Hardy Inks First-Look Deal With Lionsgate & Courtney Kemp’s End of Episode, Deadline
Moe Ari envisions a world where we all embrace our innate authenticity and diversity so that all people experience belonging and love just for being who they are.
He is passionate about helping LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies find their authentic selves and connect with others in meaningful ways. As a transgender, non-binary person and a licensed marriage and family therapist, he brings a unique perspective when helping others navigate identity, relationships and belonging in a diverse world.
An authority on relationships, Moe Ari has featured in a broad array of media outlets from USA Today to Out Magazine to Discover Magazine.
About transgender people, Nation Center for Transgender Equality
Helpful links and resources curated by GLAAD
Using data, Shivani Patel provided sobering insights into the striking public health disparities in certain communities and the factors that contribute to them.
Highlights of her talk were featured in the TEDx Shorts Podcast which is described as “eye-opening ideas from some of the world’s greatest TEDx speakers.”
Figuring out how to do things that I want to do but don’t know how to do.
As a child, I was drawn to storytelling while listening to women’s stories in my mother’s beauty parlor and later trained in filmmaking at New York University. As an adolescent, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I could never settle on one thing much to the concern of those who had my best interests at heart. When I became aware that filmmaking would allow me to incorporate my varied interests into one discipline, I declared myself a filmmaker. My family thought – thank goodness, she’s finally found something — and then followed up with more concern — what is filmmaking? It’s a big playground where the ideas in my mind and heart find enough space to breathe.
Confirmation that I’m a rabbit hole person. I enjoy going very deeply into subject explorations. It’s as though I am constantly building my own chose your own adventure story. As a result, I have come up with techniques to bring me back into the main storyline.
Being curious with a tenacious spirit and an ability to visualize how to work with a challenge. I call on this combination when faced with barriers.
Many of Ayoka Chenzira’s films today are in permanent collections including MOMA and some have been translated into French and Japanese.
Historically, American parents discourage their children from being a jack of all trades for fear of becoming a master of none, says award winning and internationally acclaimed filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira (Ayo).
Yet, success in today’s world favors the ace of plenty. Fortunately, Ayo is all that and more: she’s a pioneer of African-American cinema, one of the first African Americans to teach film production in higher education, and the first African American to earn a PhD in Digital Media Arts from Georgia Tech. On November 2 at Buckhead Theatre, she will appear on the TEDxPeachtree stage as an interactive digital media artist and transmedia storyteller.
“Transmedia storytelling is a way of telling stories by using different media platforms,” says Ayo, whose body of work includes more than 25 fiction, documentary, animation and experimental films. “Parts of the story can be on a specific website while other parts can be accessed through a smartphone or on FaceBook, Instagram, etc. If you look around most people are doing more than one thing. They’re on phone while in conversation with someone else and also looking at some other screen. This is not the linear way of being in the world for which most people have been trained.”
Ayo’s background seems to have positioned her well for engaging the modern audience and embracing convergence. Citing her mother as a tremendous and supportive influence, Ayo initially majored in film because the field allowed pursuance of her own multiple curiosities.
“As a young person I was interested in many disciplines: film, music, dance, and anthropology,” she says. “I also grew up in a community that has been redefined as Colored, Negro, Black, African-American, but not always human, and some of that experience shapes my work.”
Originally from Philadelphia, Ayo went to New York City where she studied film at NYU and education at Columbia’s Teacher College. While teaching at the City College of New York, she figuratively entered “The Academy.” There, in addition to writing, producing and directing one of the first 35-mm films by an African American woman, Alma’s Rainbow, Ayo cofounded City College’s graduate program and served as its Chair of Media and Communication Arts.
In 2001 Ayo came to Atlanta when Spelman College invited her to serve as the first William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professor in the Arts. Inspired by the large number of students on Spelman’s campus making mini films with software such as iMovie, Ayo created the award winning Digital Moving Image Salon (DMIS) program. In addition to research DMIS students construct documentary films.
Like a multi-armed deity, Ayo stays true to the metaphor of mastering multiplicity. Along with her work at Spelman and lecturing around the world on topics such as the history of American cinema and cinema technology, she also has many prestigious film projects wrapping up and currently in the works. One is the Pearl Cleage Film Project for production of Cleage’s novel Babylon Sisters. Another is the production of HER. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and due out on computers everywhere in 2013, the speculative fiction work is part film and part interactive game.
Ayo also advocates. Her interactive art installation Ordinary On Any Given Day features Skype interviews of prolific activists and changemakers around the world sharing what they do to improve social justice.
Although Ayo holds no specific loyalty to any one region, she says she very much likes being in Atlanta. Recently, she toured Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB). “GPB is one of the best kept secrets in Atlanta,” says Ayo. “It’s a phenomenal resource as far as equipment and what they can offer producers.”
Watch Ayo’s TEDx Talks here.
