Cast & Crew
Lerone D. Wilson
Executive Producer, Director
Boondoggle Films is the brainchild of filmmaker Lerone Wilson, a New York University graduate holding undergraduate degrees in both Film & Television and Economics, as well as an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University.
A product of the Metro Detroit area, Lerone has worked in various research, editing, and production capacities on documentary productions for HBO, PBS, The Travel Channel, and independent cinema.
Blending his unique journalistic prowess with his penchant for emotional tales of humanism, Lerone continues to produce high style documentary television with redeemable social qualities.
Contact: [email protected]
Nonso Christian Ugbode
Producer
Nonso Christian Ugbode is a writer, producer and web/media conceptualist. He works as the director of digital media for the National Black Programming Consortium in Harlem, NY where he oversees content and style for NBPC’s Blackpublicmedia.org website.
He also manages in-house production of content and e-advocacy for NBPC. As a producer and filmmaker his recent works include Colored Frames a film about black painters directed by Lerone Wilson, currently in distribution and screening at festivals. He received his BFA in Film & Television Production at New York University.
Magali Souriau
Composer
Born in Aix-en-Provence, France, Magali moved to Boston in 1989 as a young woman to attend the Berklee College of Music. There she met legendary jazz pianist and lifelong friend Tommy Flanagan, who jumpstarted what would become a brilliant musical career.
Along with the Magali Souriau Orchestra, Souriau scored the hit 2001 “Birdland Sessions” album, which was followed up by the 2004 “Petite Promenade” album which she performed with a jazz trio including saxophonist Chris Cheek, and bassist Matt Pavolka. She was also featured in the 2005 “The Sound of New York Jazz Underground” CD.
Lenae Harris
Composer
Her musical versatility seems limitless. Lenae A. Harris, aka Cataclysmic Sounds, is a highly sought after force in the music industry. The cellist, pianist, composer, and producer was born and raised in Chicago, IL.
Her compositions, arrangements, and performances have been featured in several projects including Ski Trip, The Cello, and Little Moon Monster. Her CD credits (as a cellist, keyboardist, arranger and/or producer) include: Sony Release: Hang on Mike, Sparkle, and Unexpected Traffic (Candy Butchers: Hang on Mike), Koch Records releases: Get Live and Anything You Ask For (The Game), Family Feud (The Dayton Family), and Calliope for (C-Murder: The Tru Story).
Benny Andrews
Benny Andrews is a painter in many genres and has been a controversial and civically engaged artist living and working in New York City for over 30 years. His work has been shown all over the world, and his activism challenged racism in the practices of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney.
Andrews recalls his inspiration for protest as a desire to show the world the wide breadth of his work, his paintings depicted people, beyond color lines, yet often his representations of Blacks rarely got shown. He was able to instigate a movement that demanded and achieved more, if not better, representations of Blackness in New York museums.
John Ashford
A Brooklyn artist born and raised in the south, with a fervent desire to showcase various faces of the African American experience. Ashford recounts experiences in art school where he faced retribution from professors based on critiques in which it was said that he drew too many black figures.
Ashford believes that the lack of acceptance many Black artist’s works face is based on a simple truth, ‘we don’t like ourselves, so we don’t like to see ourselves.’ He also thinks that the public perception of art by black artists is watered down by media proliferation of stereotypical images.
Gustave Blache III
A realist painter whose work is steeped in a classical style. He believes classical painting does not get as much attention as it should, especially when it comes to black artists in America. Blache cites examples of showing his work to certain galleries and being told they were, ‘not black enough.’ He stresses the need for Black artists to look beyond America for their inspiration, referencing past masters who have ‘borrowed’ and sometimes exploited,’ African themes.
A New Orleans native, Blache’s life was strongly affected by the recent Katrina hurricane, causing him to relocate his work and family to New York City.
Linda Goode Bryant
Linda Goode Bryant is an award-winning writer, director, and producer of experimental short films, videos, and documentaries. Bryant co-produced, directed, and edited 2003’s critically-acclaimed Flag Wars; a cinema verite look at a changing working class black neighborhood over the course of 4 years as white gays moved to the area.
She is currently in development for The Vote, another verite look at America’s 2004 Presidential campaigns, primaries, and election from the point of view of voters – she seeks to explore and understand why, in increasing numbers, Americans don’t vote.
She is also in production for Sweet Genius, a documentary that observes 4 legendary artists’ artists, who in the autumn of their lives continue to buck the international art market and live life on their own terms in New York City’s lower eastside, Europe, and Asia.
Mary Schmidt Campbell
Mary Schmidt Campbell has distinguished herself as an educator and prominent advocate of the arts. After earning a B.A. at Swarthmore College in 1969, Campbell taught English literature at Nkumbi International College in Zambia. Campbell returned to the United States and studied art history at Syracuse University, graduating with an M.A. in 1973. From 1977 to 1987, Campbell served as executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. During this time, she earned a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. She then served as commissioner of cultural affairs for the city of New York until 1991, managing an agency that funds New York cultural institutions and organizations.
After establishing herself as a leader in the field of arts and public policy, Campbell became dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she is currently still dean. She established and chairs the Department of Art and Public Policy. Campbell lectures nationally on arts policy issues and American cultural history, is professionally associated with various institutes and academies, and has won several awards for her work.
Nanette Carter
Renowned for her oil on Mylar technique, Nanette Carter is referred to by many as a visual storyteller. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Nanette Carter graduated from Oberlin College in 1976 and went on to earn her MFA from Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, New York. She continues to live and work in New York City and is currently a professor at Pratt Institute.
Carter has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the National Endowment for the Arts and The New York Foundation for the Arts award. Her works are represented in many museums across the United States including the Studio Museum of Harlem, The Newark Museum, The Shomberg Library in New York, and The Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
