Our Award-Winning Filmmakers

With enthusiasm, gravitas and a vision backed by determination, Phyllis is committed to visual storytelling and it has paid off with work that exhibits keen intuitive insights and elicited spirited, moving performances from notable actors. Supervising Director for the Emmy-nominated web-series, “Send Me,” creator/producer of SPENT, winner of the BET Lens on Talent for Best Film and director of the award-winning short film BURNED, Phyllis’ filmmaking is preceded by having directed 30+ plays at some of the country’s most reputable theaters, including the Smithsonian’s African-American Museum, the Hartford Stage Company and Playwright’s Horizons.

A strong proponent of advancing women’s creativity, as an alumnus, she also founded the Bancroft Scholarship for Women of Color at the A.F.I. Conservatory.

Dea has been casting feature films and television for 20 years. She started in commercials and music video casting in 1999 and ended up doing almost entirely theatrical projects. She co-cast the theatre-released films “God’s Not Dead,” “The Case for Christ,” and “Do You Believe?” and many more with her former partner Billy DaMota, now retired. See Dea Vise at imdb.com for a full list of features and television shows.

Dea is working on her doctoral dissertation in Psychology and holds a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology as well as a Bachelor of Arts and an Associate of Arts in Acting. Dea is from Texas and gets the job done. Hook ’em, Horns!

Doug Howell attended the film school at Chapman University and received an MFA from the AFI Conservatory. Doug has worked in Hollywood in a variety of different production and story development positions for numerous producers including: Gale Anne Hurd, Pierre David, Haim Saban, and Tony and Ridley Scott.

Doug co-wrote FUGITIVE AT 17, SORORITY SURROGATE and GUILTY AT 17 for the Lifetime Network, and, as Head of Development for Jorva Entertainment Productions, Doug served as Associate Producer or Co-Producer on numerous television and feature films.

Nikki Syreeta is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter, logline specialist, professional script reader and consultant harboring a frighteningly active imagination with an affinity for unique characters and subtext.

Nikki is the founder of Breaking Loglines®, a logline crafting service that helps the logline challenged. Nikki is currently an associate producer on a short film, Good Times at Mike Kelso’s, which is in development, earning her certification as an Intimacy Coordinator with Centuary Co., and her next projects are an action/ drama feature and a character-driven web series.

David Tweedie is an award winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and film composer based in Los Angeles.

Dave has written music for multiple movies and television shows including  IFC’s Dear Santa (Score Composer 2020), Disney’s Pick Of The Litter (Score Composer 2019), NOVA’s The Impossible Flight (Score Composer 2018), The Final Show (composer and winner best score in a short NYC Independent Film Festival 2018), Warner Bros BatKid Begins (Score Composer 2015),  So You Think You Can Dance (Composer Seasons 3-6).

After receiving her B.S., with a double major in Video/Film and Computer Science from the University of Miami, Lynarion moved to Los Angeles to attend the American Film Institute Conservatory’s editing program.

Upon graduation she edited on various projects, including shorts, television shows and features. More recently, Lynarion has worked on projects such as TRANSPARENT (Amazon), THE POLKA KING (Netflix Features) CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND (The CW), LITTLE AMERICA (Apple TV+) and INSECURE (HBO).

Lynarion recently won an Emmy for “Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series” for her recent work on season 4 of Insecure.

Swisyzinna considers herself an actors’ director. This can be seen by watching her 2-time pre-Emmy nominated series, “Stepford SideChix” in which she has directed every episode. She made her directing debut in the late 90’s with the hit stage play, “Dreamgirls.”

Between now and then she has had the opportunity to direct a myriad of projects from shorts film, music videos, zoom commercials and demo reels. Swisyzinna is looking forward to directing her first feature film.

She is currently working on completing her MFA in directing to broaden her technical knowledge and skill of her beloved craft.

Jo Lilore is a web developer and web marketer with over twenty years of internet marketing and online production experience. 

Jo also runs a profeminist and gender equality Tumblr, and is working on a book on gender and society.