Maori Karmael Holmes is a filmmaker, writer, and curator. She founded BlackStar Film Festival in 2012 and serves as Chief Executive & Artistic Officer of BlackStar Projects. She has organized film programs at Anthology Film Archives, MOCA, and Whitney Museum. Recent exhibitions she’s organized include Rashid Zakat: Uses of the Ironic (2024), Terence Nance: Swarm (2023), and Assemblage (2019). As a director, her works have screened internationally including “Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip-Hop”. She has directed music videos for India.Arie, Mike Africa, Jr., and Wayna. She has produced several films including Iyabo Kwayana’s By Water (2023). Her writing has most recently appeared in Seen, Documentary Magazine, The Believer, Film Quarterly, and Pleasure Activism. Maori was named a Kennedy Center Next 50 Fellow, a 2023 United States Artists Berresford Prize recipient, a 2022 Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures Fellow, and a 2019 Soros Equality Fellow.