Through the Lens

Rain Valdez just received her first Primetime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series” for her lead role in Razor Tongue, which she created, crowdfunded and produced. Rain is the 2nd transgender actress to ever be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category and the FIRST Filipina American transgender actress to be nominated. Rain is also the founder of ActNOW, the first and only acting class in Los Angeles prioritizing a safe space for LGBTQIA actors and teaches beyond the binary. Rain got her start playing ‘Coco’ in season 2 of TV Land’s Lopez and doubling in Amazon‘s Transparent as Miss Van Nuys on screen and a producer behind the scenes. Valdez’s rom-com short Ryans, which she stars in, screened in over 15 film festivals worldwide after premiering at Outfest, winning the Jury Award for Best North American Short at the NCGLFF. Rain’s short film Hexed was nominated for Best Director, Best Comedy and Best Actress at the Madrid International Film Festival. Rain has been named one of Outfest LA’s Next Generation of Filmmakers and is Inside Out Pitch Please! Contest 2019 winner. She recently starred in a Paul Feig directed, half-hour comedy pilot for Freeform TV, guest stars in Amazon’s Sneaky Pete and can also be seen in the CBS All Access new show Why Women Kill. Her 7-part web series Razor Tongue, which she wrote and stars in, had its international premiere in Toronto at InsideOut Film Festival, its US premiere in San Francisco at Frameline Film Festival of June 2019, as well as, premiering in LA at the Outfest Film Festival.

Tamara Bass started her career in front of the camera, with roles in Baby Boy, Boston Public, and The Fugitive among others, Tamara began her transition to working both angles, with her short film Exposure that ran the festival circuit. The film garnered a lot of attention when it made its debut at The Pan African Film Festival. It went on to screen at The Reel World Film Festival, after being solicited by their programming director. Exposure was also nominated for a Kodak Award at the Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival and premiered in New York at the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival. Tamara also wrote, produced, and directed her second short film, Broken starring April Lee Hernandez and Dorian Missick. She followed that effort, when she created, starred and directed, alongside business partner Meagan Good, the successful web series All That Matters, that launched on WorldStar Hip Hop. Tamara‘s feature film debut, If Not Now, When?, was released by Vertical Entertainment in January 2021, after it premiered at American Black Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Jury Award for Best Narrative feature, Best Screenplay (for Tamara) and Best Director (shared with Meagan Good). In addition to ABFF, If Not Now, When?, screened at Urbanworld, Portland Film Festival, LA Femme, as well as internationally at Toronto Black Film Festival and Da Bounce Urban Film Festival in Amsterdam. If Not Now, When? was also a part of ABFF’s inaugural Global Series, when it was screened in London as part of their kickoff. Tamara followed that up by directing Don’t Waste Your Pretty for TV One, which debuted in February 2021, as well as writing/executive producing The Color of Love for Lifetime. Tamara’s second film for TV One, Coins Forever, recently premiered on the network and she is currently in post-production on an upcoming episode of the 3rd season of BET/BET+ anthology series Tales. Tamara actively pitching other film and television projects as both an actor and director, sometimes both at the same time.

Sujata Day has established herself in Hollywood as a multi-hyphenate performer, creator, writer, and director. She honed her improv comedy and sketch-writing skills at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and regularly performs in UCB’s hit Asian AF show. Sujata is known for her starring role as CeCe in Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. She’s recurred for three seasons on HBO‘s Insecure. Sujata is a Sundance Lab screenwriting fellow, Sundance Film Festival influencer, and HBO Visionaries Ambassador. Her narrative short film, Cowboy and Indian, sold to a major studio for series development with Sujata writing, producing and starring. Sujata wrote, produced, directed, and stars in her award-winning feature film, Definition Please.

Erica Fae brings radical stories from history onto the stage and screen. Her first feature film as writer/director/producer/actor, To Keep the Light (on a woman lighthouse keeper in the 1860s), was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize (International Critics’ Prize/Mannheim), Best Director (Berlin Indp), Best of Show (BendFilm), Best Emerging Director (St. Louis Int’l), 2 Best Narrative Feature Awards (Ojai and Port Townsend), and 2 Best Cinematography Awards (Woods Hole & Las Vegas). It also screened at Vancouver Int’l Film Fest, and was nominated for festival prizes at Woodstock, Florida, Nashville, New Hampshire, Filmfest DC, and Salento. She also won Best Short and Best Actress prizes for her short, Christine 1403; and her play, Take What Is Yours (on suffragist Alice Paul) was named a Critics’ Pick in The New York Times and Backstage. Her recent play, Saved Again and by Him – based on and interrogating Sarah Wakefield‘s 1860 memoir from the Dakota Uprising – premiered at the New Ohio, NYC. She is on the acting faculty at the Yale School of Drama (now David Geffen School of Drama at Yale), has taught Directing Actors at Columbia’s Grad Film Program and The Film Academy Baden-Württemberg (Germany). She wrote on Directing Actors for Filmmaker Magazine, and was a guest panelist at Sundance on filmmaking and social justice. To Keep the Light is distributed by Gravitas (US/Canada) and Flix Premiere (UK/France), and is available on Amazon Prime. She’s currently in development on her second feature, which was selected to participate in NYC’s MOME finance lab, and was a finalist for NYWIFT’s Ravenal grant.