About

“SIFTMEDIA 215 IS MORE THAN A MOVEMENT!”

– Co-Founder Yolonda Johnson-Young, March 2019

At a meeting in March of 2019, as part of HipCinema Labs weekly co-work meet up at Mt. Airy Nexus, a group of five Black women filmmakers- Tatiana Bacchus, Martha Conley, Yolonda Johnson-Young, Nadine Patterson and Stephanie Malson- decided to gather their resources and form a collective to support each other as independent socially conscious filmmakers.

SIFTMedia 215 is a support system of several independent media artists who work in the Philadelphia metropolitan area and provide a community of support for socially conscious women identified filmmakers. Our goal at SIFTMedia 215 is to amplify the work of and create opportunities for Black and Latinx Women content creators.

It is not a secret that Black Women filmmakers are grossly underfunded in cinema and television. Despite this fact, we still create, by any means necessary!

We launched a SIFT Survey in 2022 called LISTEN TO WHAT I SAY.

We promote the work of our members as their films are seen at festivals such as Sundance to public television and online streaming services like kweli.TV.

As of April 2023 we now have 35 members in the SIFTMedia 215 Collective.

We completed our first collaborative program COVID1619 PROJECT. We are embedded at The Colored Girls Museum and are forming new partnerships across the region.

For queries on how to collaborate with us or to learn more about our work, please write to us at siftmedia215@mail.com. Thank you!

Our previous funding partners include: