Sista Brunch

At our Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, we set up a podcast room and invited everyone in the building to interview each other with prompt cards. This is the thirteenth of fifteen conversations from that day. Director Jade-Jenise Dixon — who also appears in Volume 4 of this series — sits down with actor, writer, and producer Lanre Idewu. They've been crossing paths since the wrap party for Jade's first feature Truth Hall, where Lanre was the only person on the DVD bonus material who named how much work it must have taken. He knew because he was already producing shorts and understood the distance between twenty minutes and a hundred. Years later they worked together on Kold x Windy. Lanre talks about the lineage that made his own career imaginable, from Oscar Micheaux and Melvin Van Peebles through Spike Lee, Robert Townsend, Ava, Issa, and Lena — you have to see that it's possible before you know what you can do. Jade shares two times she walked away from money: a role handed to her without an audition that she read and refused, and independent film financing that came with conditions she wasn't willing to meet. Lanre closes on how leaving personal training behind was the self-care that let him finally invest in his own acting career. Watch the video version on YouTube (@TruJuLoMedia) or Apple Podcasts. The full unedited conversation is available to members at patreon.com/sistabrunch. Filmed at The Recording Club, Santa Monica. Recorded during the Sista Brunch Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, produced with Pioneer Network. Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions, hosted and produced by Fanshen Cox, with our Season Seven team: Samantha K. Henderson, Tasha Rogers, Ashanti Groves, Charlie T. Savage, Shawn Pipkin-West, and Maegan Philmore. Recorded on the unceded territory of the Tongva and the Chumash in Los Angeles. Support the show: leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and join us at patreon.com/sistabrunch.

At our Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, we set up a podcast room and invited everyone in the building to interview each other with prompt cards. This is the twelfth of fifteen conversations from that day. Filmmaker Rraine Hanson — born in Kingston, based in LA, working across the union art department as set dresser, prop master, and production designer while making his own work — sits down with actor and producer Hari Williams. Rraine heard about Sista Brunch at the Black Indie Ignite summit the day before and came because our language named Black women and gender expansive people, which meant he wouldn't have to choose between a Black space and a queer space. He talks about installation as an extension of his directorial practice, the recurring throughline in his work of treating ourselves and the natural world as sacred, and why the stakes are too high to make anything without intention. He was a Season 7 guest, and his short film Transcend is currently in post, shooting in Kingston. Hari also shares how this celebration came together: a conversation about bringing six seasons of guests into one room where everyone would feel seen. Watch the video version on YouTube (@TruJuLoMedia) or Apple Podcasts. The full unedited conversation is available to members at patreon.com/sistabrunch. Filmed at The Recording Club, Santa Monica. Recorded during the Sista Brunch Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, produced with Pioneer Network. Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions, hosted and produced by Fanshen Cox, with our Season Seven team: Samantha K. Henderson, Tasha Rogers, Ashanti Groves, Charlie T. Savage, Shawn Pipkin-West, and Maegan Philmore. Recorded on the unceded territory of the Tongva and the Chumash in Los Angeles. Support the show: leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and join us at patreon.com/sistabrunch.

At our Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, we set up a podcast room and invited everyone in the building to interview each other with prompt cards. This is the eleventh of fifteen conversations from that day. Our drop-in co-host Shawn Pipkin-West — a director and UPM who was a Sista Brunch guest twice before joining us behind the mic — sits down with her friend Janean Jeffries, an executive assistant. Asked what they believed five years ago and no longer do, Shawn says she believed she had to be perfect. What replaced it is a practice of saying yes to what scares her, including this podcast. Janean believed she was too essential to be laid off while doing the work of seven people. She was wrong, and what she took from it is sharper than bitterness: no one needs you, so create things for yourself and build your own community. Shawn also talks about directing one of five horror shorts made in two weeks, deliberately choosing the most ambitious script in the pile. Being on Sista Brunch was on Janean's vision board. As of this episode, it's manifested — welcome to the family. Watch the video version on YouTube (@TruJuLoMedia) or Apple Podcasts. The full unedited conversation is available to members at patreon.com/sistabrunch. Filmed at The Recording Club, Santa Monica. Recorded during the Sista Brunch Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, produced with Pioneer Network. Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions, hosted and produced by Fanshen Cox, with our Season Seven team: Samantha K. Henderson, Tasha Rogers, Ashanti Groves, Charlie T. Savage, Shawn Pipkin-West, and Maegan Philmore. Recorded on the unceded territory of the Tongva and the Chumash in Los Angeles. Support the show: leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and join us at patreon.com/sistabrunch.

At our Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, we set up a podcast room and invited everyone in the building to interview each other with prompt cards. This is the tenth of fifteen conversations from that day. Charisma Justice and Michelle Turner joined us through our talent producer Kamesha Rodriguez, and gave us one of the most candid conversations of the day. Asked when she last felt truly seen, Charisma says she isn't there yet — she's mid-career-change and planning a cross-country move, living in what she calls the pre stage. Her definition of arriving has nothing to do with status: enough money that the bills don't register, room in the back to build a house for her mother, her child next door, and no one worrying about long-term care. On rest, she's blunt about why Black women don't take it, and honest about what her own version looks like. Michelle shares that she chose to step back after years of giving herself to other people's dreams, and wonders now whether she's been resting too long. Watch the video version on YouTube (@TruJuLoMedia) or Apple Podcasts. The full unedited conversation is available to members at patreon.com/sistabrunch. Filmed at The Recording Club, Santa Monica. Recorded during the Sista Brunch Season Six Celebration and Season Seven Fundraiser, produced with Pioneer Network. Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions, hosted and produced by Fanshen Cox, with our Season Seven team: Samantha K. Henderson, Tasha Rogers, Ashanti Groves, Charlie T. Savage, Shawn Pipkin-West, and Maegan Philmore. Recorded on the unceded territory of the Tongva and the Chumash in Los Angeles. Support the show: leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and join us at patreon.com/sistabrunch.

This is our first collaboration episode. We teamed up with Consider This for Comfort, the award-winning podcast hosted by Eteng Ettah, to welcome back Hillman ahead of A Different World's premiere on Netflix on Thursday, September 24. In the first half, Eteng and Fanshen talk about what the original series meant to them and to a generation of Black viewers. They get into the case for a sequel in an era of reboots, and why Felicia Pride as showrunner matters. They also talk about the state of Black Hollywood, and where to find and support our stories beyond the studios. In the second half, we go behind the scenes with Jen Farris, an Atlanta-based film and TV location scout. Jen explains how location tells a story and how she went from the music business to scouting. She also shares what it meant for the new A Different World to film on real HBCU campuses in the Atlanta University Center. Then Eteng and Jen sit down to our signature Sista Brunch question. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:35 Welcome to the collab 02:50 What makes a comfort show 06:40 First memories of A Different World 12:50 The case for a sequel 22:00 The state of Black Hollywood 26:50 Festivals and Black-owned distribution 30:10 Who we're becoming 35:00 Eteng's Sista Brunch 38:30 Meet Jen Farris 41:10 What a location scout does 49:00 From music to film 52:50 When we see us on set 56:30 Scouting Hillman 61:30 A Different World and HBCU enrollment 70:00 Movie magic on a budget 77:30 Jen's Sista Brunch 81:30 Where to follow Jen Co-host/Guests Eteng Ettah is a pop culture commentator and host of Consider This for Comfort. Instagram: @etenggg | @considerthisforcomfortpod Jen Farris is a 15-year Atlanta-based film and TV location scout with 28 years in arts and entertainment. Her credits include Atlanta, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Genius: Aretha, Game Night, Sleepy Hollow. She is a member of Teamsters Local 728 and served as secretary of the Location Managers Guild International board of directors (2021–2022). She also hosts Yo, Did You Know? Instagram: @msjenfarris | @yo.didyouknow Website: jen-farris.com Mentioned in this episode A Different World (Netflix) UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report Kweli TV American Black Film Festival Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival BronzeLens Film Festival BlackStar Film Festival Our June 2020 episode with Felicia Pride: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/felicia-pride-replay-on-pivoting-ownership-and/id1506316350?i=1000791006528 Watch and listen Listen to Consider This for Comfort: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/consider-this-for-comfort/id1823537949