upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
M. Asli Dukan is an independent filmmaker who embraces the futuristic, fantastic and imaginary genres of speculative fiction (SF) as a way to explore the possibilities of social transformation in society. She has written, produced and directed several short SF films that have screened at distinct festivals across the country including the ImageNation Film and Music Festival in New York City and the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival in Seattle. She has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including the Urban Artists Initiative Grant (2009), the Kitchen Table Giving Circle Grant (2012), and from the Leeway Foundation – the Art and Change Grant (2014, 2016) and the Transformation Award (2016). In 2016, she also had the honor of being named an NBPC360 Fellow with the National Black Programming Consortium in New York. She holds an MFA in Media and Communication Arts from the City College of New York and is the founder of Mizan Media Productions where she has produced her own films, as well as numerous promotional projects for innovative, progressive and radical artists and organizations. Some work produced by her company include her films Orishas (2001), 73 (2008) and M.O.M.M. (2011) and her music videos Boot (2006) for Tamar-kali and Do You Mind (2008) for Hanifah Walidah. She is currently in post-production on two feature length projects, Invisible Universe, a documentary about the historical representations and the participation of Black people in the genres of speculative fiction and Songs for Nina, a music and travel documentary following the “Daughters of Nina” orchestra on their French tour as they pay homage to the late singer/pianist, Nina Simone. Her next projects are the SF web series, Resistance and the anthology horror film, Skin Folk, based on the book by the award winning SF writer, Nalo Hopkinson. Ms. Dukan also tours the country as one of the leading voices lecturing about Black Speculative Fiction history.