SHANDRA L. MCDONALD is an award-winning screenwriter, director, and producer with more than 20 years’ experience in the television and film industry. Her projects have earned accolades from the Director's Guild of America, Atlanta Film Festival, IFP Film Festival, Hollywood Black Film Festival, Showtime Black Filmmakers Showcase and the 48-Hour Film Festival. Shandra has written, directed and produced original content that has aired on networks including, Showtime, Oxygen, TV One, CBS, BET, NBC, TLC, The Discovery Channel, The Fine Living Network, Aspire/UP TV, and the Turner Networks. Shandra's film projects have screened at international festivals including the Cannes Film Festival in France and the Fespaco Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Africa. She has been asked to direct and produce many projects for Women in Film and Television/Atlanta including a PSA, a documentary, and served as the showrunner/co-producer on a narrative, web series about prostitution. A recent project the film title, JINN where she is one of the Executive Producers, has received distribution with MGM Studios and is screening and winning awards at film festivals across the country, including the South by Southwest Film Festival, American Black Film Festival, Roxbury Film Festival and many more. The film recently received a distribution deal with MGM Studios and is set to release in theatres across the county and stream concurrently on Amazon in the fall. Shandra has a flair for development. She is currently in development with award-winning production company Screen Lloyd for a feature film that she co-wrote and is slated to direct titled Awake O Sleeper. Ms. McDonald continues to grow her film-production company Kiss the Limit Productions producing various types of content including web series, television pilots, documentaries, short and feature films, while being a proud Film Professor at Clayton State University.

JESSICA WHITE-POPE is from the southern city of Waycross, Georgia. She is a singer-songwriter and Executive Producer of the web series entitled “The Royal Court”. While she is new to the film industry, her desire is to broaden her abilities to create and produce television series that will capture the essence of true inspiration.

AMBRIA SPENCER is 21 years old and was born and raised in the southern city called Waycross, Georgia. She is a recent graduate of Fort Valley State University where she received her bachelor's in Business Management. While at Fort Valley State University she served in different leadership positions such as Miss 1895, Miss Football, Miss Royal Blue and Miss Fort Valley State University. As her life continues she has come to find this quote very powerful and useful, “If your dreams or goals don’t scare you then they’re simply not big enough- Muhammad Ali.”

CHARLES WALLER is a 22 year old African American male from the cherry blossom city of Macon, Ga. He is the son of Tia Glover, Charles and Milkia Waller. He has four siblings, 1 boy and 3 girls. He graduated in 2013 from Westside high school. Attending The Fort Valley State University, Charles has served as Mr.Basketball, Mr.1895 and Mr. Fort Valley State University. In these positions, Charles served his University and Fort Valley community to the best of his ability. Charles lives by one of his favorite quotes from Eric Thomas, “ When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful.”

MISTY KELLY began working as a freelancer in TV and Film Production with major cable networks in New York City after earning a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication form Auburn University in 2002. She completed her Master of Business Administration specializing in Entertainment Management in Atlanta, Georgia in 2012. Since, Misty has enjoyed working with Atlanta’s top event production firms managing the stage, fundraising, providing production logistics and voice-overs for high profile non-profits in the region. Misty's passion for spreading awareness of art and culture has been her life-line for nearly a decade. 

AVRIL SPEAKS - has several years of experience as a filmmaker to include credits as a producer, writer, director, and editor.  Seeing a need for a broader selection of quality films, Avril's goal is to diversify the film market by creating unique films, and by educating and empowering aspiring filmmakers; thereby creating a movement consisting of media that represents the true, multi-dimensional qualities of people and speaks to the world.

Committed to themes that center around family, community, social justice, and spirituality, Avril continues to work on interesting projects within film and television. She was an Associate Producer on the TNT docu-series American Race, and is the lead producer on the feature film Jinn, which premiered in Narrative Competition at SXSW in 2018 and won Special Jury Recognition for Writing. She is currently one of the producers for the upcoming feature film, Hosea, while preparing to produce Easmanie Michel’s film Caroline’s Wedding, based on the short story by Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat. She is a Film Independent Producing Lab Fellow for the project Noor, and a winner of the 2018 Movie Magic Producer Award. She most recently worked as a Production Manager for Scripted Programming at BET Networks.

Avril earned her M.F.A. in Film Directing from Columbia University School of the Arts in New York City and was a film professor in Atlanta and at Howard University before moving to Los Angeles. She earned a second Masters in Theology and Film before deciding to leave academia to focus primarily on producing and directing. She has directed two feature films The Round Table, and the award-winning film Sophisticated Romance. For more information, visit http://www.azuspeak.com.