Olu Famule is a visual artist and filmmaker, co-founder and one of the festival directors of Cinefilmu—a QTBIPOC-centered film festival. He draws on his cultural background as Nigerian American and experience as a cinematographer, video editor, and event organizer to tell stories, mentor emerging artists, and develop innovative ways to bring creatives together.

Famule is also a co-founder of TDM5, a visual arts incubator that supports emerging Black visual artists in releasing their first projects while organizing art and film events that engage the community.

Project Statement

Sister Belonging is a short documentary that follows a group of African women in northern Minnesota and rural Wisconsin and explores their close-knit community amidst the isolating and often hostile Midwest. Blending documentary-style storytelling with an abstract lens and the addition of fictional elements, the film immerses viewers into their world.

Photo Credit: Sunmi Famule

Maggie Manzer joined the Jerome Foundation in 2025. She brings 23 years of experience in business and financial management in New York and Philadelphia, with a specialty in consulting for small businesses and creative enterprises. She has worked as a fashion and portrait photographer and especially enjoys supporting good business practices for professionals working in the arts. She is also a member of the tax collective Philly Tax Prep for Artists.

Xiaolu Wang received $30,000 for Wet Togetherness. The film follows the spirit of a drowned child who leads the filmmaker on a pilgrimage to dismantle their fear of water. By visiting with the humans and marine mammals who explore interdependence and collective organizing, new forms of engaging with the water and each other emerge.

Peter Nelson received $30,000 for White (working title), which weaves together five narratives of individuals reflecting on their whiteness. Historically, race has been viewed as a non-white issue, and the burden to understand race and racism in recent years has been overwhelmingly put on people of color. This project seeks to engage white people in a self-examination of their whiteness. Nelson will use stop-motion animation and recorded interviews to reveal white perspectives, biases, and blind spots as individuals consider their roles in white privilege, white solidarity, and white fragility.

Catherine Licata received $23,360 for The Lobby (working title), a narrative short film about Josefina, a hotel housekeeper determined to improve her life with the aid of her favorite self-help audiobook. A cinematic response to the performative “hustle” of late capitalist America, Licata entwines the issues of economic and class mobility with the contemporary immigrant experience.  This short character-driven drama deals with structural inequalities beyond any one person’s control, playing with audience expectations on class and societal roles.  

Photo by Monique Walton.