Film Independent & Netflix Award $180K to Six New Amplifier Fellows
Here at Film Independent, we like our creative visions bold. We like our thinking outside-the-box. We like our filmmakers loud. That’s why we made six of them Amplifiers.
Film Independent is proud to announce and welcome the 2025 Amplifier Fellows. This cohort six of Black or African American filmmakers working as writers, directors and/or producers will each be given an unrestricted grant of $30,000, with the support of Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity.
On top of the grants, the Amplifier Fellowship will include a twelve-month program where Fellows will receive personalized support to propel their selected projects and careers both creatively and strategically as well as customized mentorship pairings with Industry Advisors as well as a Film Independent board member.
Each Fellow will also receive professional coaching in partnership with Renee Freedman & Co, and financial and business advisement in partnership with The Jill James.
Past Amplifier Fellows include Contessa Gayles, whose supported project Songs From the Hole won the 2025 Cinema Eye Honors Heterdox Award, and 2025 Variety’s Top 10 Directors to Watch, David Fortune, whose supported project Colorbook debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and was nominated for a 2025 NAACP Image Award.
“This year’s Amplifier Fellows are an exceptionally accomplished group whose voices and artistry have already made a cultural impact across television, feature films and documentaries” said Angela C. Lee, Director of Artist Development at Film Independent. We are so thrilled to provide bespoke mentorship and crucial granting to help each Fellow take their careers as artists and entrepreneurs to the next level.”
Let’s meet the 2025 Amplifier Fellows:
Jameka Autry
Jameka Autry is an award-winning filmmaker and investigative storyteller. Her work is dedicated to centering documentary storytelling around themes of underrepresentation and invisibility throughout non-fiction features, shorts, and series. Jameka is a 2025 Film Independent Amplifier Fellow and an alumni of the Sundance Catalyst Fellowship, Women at Sundance Adobe Fellowship, Sundance Creative Producing Fellowship, Impact Partners Documentary Producers Fellowship, Ford Foundation, JustFilms/Rockwood Fellowship, and selected for the inaugural DOC NYC ‘40 Under 40’ list. Recent films include Through The Night, Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops, Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing, In My Father’s House, We The Animals and Love Gilda.
Roll: Producer
Project: The Playbook (Nonfiction Feature)
Logline: When a small Christian college descends on Tennessee, local parents and politicians uncover a far-right plot to do away with public education across the nation.
Chad Charlie
Chad Charlie is an Afro-Indigenous filmmaker, writer, and comedian from the Ahousaht First Nation. He began his career in stand-up comedy and spoken word poetry before expanding into film and television. As a writer and actor on FX’s Emmy-nominated Reservation Dogs, he has contributed to groundbreaking Indigenous storytelling. His short films, Firecracker Bullets and Uu?uu~tah, explore themes of identity, resilience and cultural preservation. Chad is a writer for Amazon’s Elle and a Film Independent Amplifier Fellow. He has also been selected for the Sundance Episodic Lab and imagineNATIVE Directors Lab, dedicated to elevating Indigenous and Black narratives.
Roll: Writer/Director
Project: White Center Juce (Fiction Series)
Logline: An ex-criminal turned juice bar owner navigates his daily life as a single father in the community that raised him.
J.M. Harper
J.M. Harper’s directorial debut, As We Speak (Paramount+), a feature documentary that creatively explores the criminalization of rap lyrics, premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance 2024. Named to DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” list in 2024, Harper has also edited four critically acclaimed features and series, including the Emmy-nominated Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix, Sundance 2022), A Kid from Coney Island (Netflix), which chronicles the life of Stephon Marbury and Down a Dark Stairwell (PBS, Criterion Channel). As a commercial director with Park Pictures, Harper has garnered accolades at Cannes Lions, Clios, UKVMAs and Adweek.
Roll: Director
Project: The Soul Patrol (Nonfiction Feature)
Logline: After 50 years of silence, Vietnam’s first black special operations team reunite to share their journey from soldiers to vital witnesses of war’s human cost.
Raven Jackson
Raven Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker, poet and photographer from Tennessee. Her work often explores indefinable experiences and emotions, intimacy, connection, and the body’s relationship to nature. Nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director, Raven’s debut narrative film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, world-premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and was named one of the top ten movies of the year by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and RogerEbert.com. She has served as a Story Editor for HBO’s adaptation of Sula, based on Toni Morrison’s novel, and co-wrote an episode of the Apple TV+ Series, Surface. A 2024 Sundance Momentum Fellow and Rideback Rise Resident, her short films Nettles and A Guide to Breathing Underwater are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
Roll: Writer/Director
Project: Scar Tissue (Fiction Series)
Logline: When Monique’s sister vanishes, she pulls threads connected to her disappearance, confronting mysteries around her and within the deepest parts of herself.
Tracy Jarrett
Tracy Jarrett (Director/Producer) is a Peabody and Emmy-award winning filmmaker who synthesizes rigorous journalistic investigation with heartfelt documentary storytelling. She most recently was a producer on the feature film Victim/Suspect (2023, Sundance, Netflix, Outstanding Research in a Documentary Emmy), the feature film The Fire That Took Her (2022, MTV Studios, Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary Emmy) and the documentary series Working: What We Do All Day, featuring President Barack Obama (2023, Netflix). Her work on Charlottesville: Race and Terror (2017, HBO) earned 4 Emmy awards, a Peabody Award, and was TIME Magazine’s TV episode of the year. Tracy is directing her first feature documentary with support from Sandbox Films, Catapult and Sundance, and is a 2023 Directing fellow through the Concordia Studio Fellowship.
Roll: Director/Producer
Project: Untitled PMSR Film (Nonfiction Feature)
Logline: Faced with the loss of her husband, Christina asks doctors to retrieve sperm from his dead body, starting a journey of self and scientific discovery.
Skinner Myers
Skinner Myers is an award-winning filmmaker whose debut feature, The Sleeping Negro, premiered at Slamdance in 2022 and was acquired by Art Mattan Films, MUBI and UniversCiné. It won the FIPRESCI prize at the 2022 IFFMH. His sophomore film, Before You Fade Away Into Nothing, had its World Premiere at the Berlinale Critics’ Week in 2025, further establishing his distinct cinematic voice. Myers is currently in production on his third feature, Moodswing Whiskey. With each project, he continues to push boundaries and challenge narratives, crafting films that resonate on both personal and societal levels.
Roll: Writer/Director
Project: Jim Crow (Fiction Series)
Logline: A colored minister forms an unimaginable partnership with a white deputy to take down the 1930’s KKK.
For more information on any of our Artist Development Labs or the projects that have been developed in them, please contact us. Additional information can be found at filmindependent.org.
For over 40 years, Film Independent has helped filmmakers get their projects made and seen. The nonprofit organization’s core mission is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.
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