MEET THE PANELISTS 

Kecia Élan Cole is an Emmy-nominated, and New York Press Club Award winning TV Producer and Editor. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from Kent State University, where she founded and edited an on-campus magazine. Kecia’s editing work has been featured in music videos by Talib Kweli and Fat Man Scoop, and a short film by noted filmmakers Malik Sayeed and Arthur Jafa. She has also freelanced with ABC's Good Morning America Now and BET. She is currently a Supervising Producer and Editor for BRIC TV where she is a Series Producer on: B-Side, Brooklyn Made, and Brooklyn Is Masquerading As The World with Terence Nance. She is Executive Producer on several scripted series that have premiered at noteworthy film festivals including TriBeca  including: They Charge for The Sun (Terence Nance), Sole Kings (Michael Pinckney, All Hail Beth (Misha Calvert), The Future Is Then (Sarah Salovaara), Sauce (Dui Jarrod),  and the forthcoming Inspector Ike (Matt Grady) and Eighty-Sixed (Alex Spieth).

Patrick Coker has been involved in the Theater, Film and TV industry since the mid-90’s, first as an actor and later on stepping behind the camera as a director and content provider. A graduate of the LIU Media Arts Program with an M.F.A. in Directing he has been the creative mind behind many indie music videos, short films and the feature film Shankman’s Deli. Currently he has a short film he DP’ed , July’s Child and a short that he directed, Moves We Make, on the festival circuit. He was also part of the writing team for the BET TV series “TALES,” executive produced by Irv Gotti.

Misha Calvert is an award-winning show creator with projects spanning film, TV and digital. An official participant of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival Digital Creators Market, Misha's new series All Hail Beth premieres on BRIC TV in fall 2019. Three-time finalist for the Sundance/YouTube New Voices Lab, Misha has screened at festivals around the world for her digital comedies Strut, Textual Intercourse, Step Into My Office, and Pee Sitting Down. As an actor, she has appeared regularly on the Emmy Award-winning show A Crime to Remember. Off-Broadway writer/director credits include three Chekhovian satires set in a 1980’s high school, and the original comedy A Seagull is Born. Misha first achieved notoriety as an experimental performance artist, where she garnered a great deal of press for her media manipulation and public satires, most notably Re-Virginization, The Mister and Miss Williamsburg Pageant, and the Bob Ross-themed fundraiser Beat the Devil Out of It which raised money for inner city art students. More info at www.mishacalvert.com.

Stacey L. Holman’s work expands across two continents. From the United States to South Africa Dressed Like Kings, this Harlem-based filmmaker has directed/produced award-winning shorts Mirar Mirror, Girl Talk and content for cable TV Red Heeled. Her portfolio includes the critically-acclaimed Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities, the Peabody Award-winning Freedom Summer and the Emmy Award-winning Freedom Riders produced and directed by City College Alumni Stanley Nelson, the Emmy Award-winning Jesse Owens, and Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band, which aired on PBS. In 2018, Stacey produced/directed episode three of the PBS documentary Reconstruction: America After the Civil War hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. which recently aired on PBS. She is currently the Series Producer/Director on Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 4-hour series, The Black Church, and she's teaching the next generation of filmmakers as an adjunct professor at City College.

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose directed films in the U.S. and abroad including Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. Her work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, New York Magazine’s website -The Cut, The Atlantic and Field of Vision. Her latest film The Green Book: Guide to Freedom was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel in February 2019 to record audiences. Yoruba’s last feature documentary, The New Black won multiple festival awards and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a GLAAD Media Award.  It was broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens. Her previous film Promised Land, won the Fledgling Fund award for social issue documentary and was broadcast on POV.  Yoruba won a Clio award for her short film about the Grammy-nominated singer Andra Day.  She has also won Creative Promise Award at Tribeca All Access and was a Sundance Producers Fellow. Yoruba is a featured TED Speaker, a Fulbright fellow, a Guggenheim fellow and a 2016 recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker Award. She was chosen for the Root 100s list of African Americans 45 years old and younger who are responsible for the year’s most significant moments and themes. Yoruba is the director of the documentary program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.