On January 20, communities across the country observe the 10th annual National Day of Racial Healing. This event takes place the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day and marks its 40th year as a federal holiday. To honor this milestone, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is launching a new storytelling initiative that centers creativity as a pathway toward equity, healing, and connection.
How We Heal: Films That Connect Us, Stories That Renew Us is an innovative short film lab supporting U.S.-based emerging filmmakers ages 18–35. In collaboration with the Kellogg Foundation and ADISA (a global advisory firm focused on entertainment, culture, and brand development), the lab invites filmmakers to submit short films or concepts based on the topic of shared humanity. Industry experts will then choose 10 semi-finalists who will have the opportunity to work virtually alongside mentors to create 4-10-minute films. The mentorship offers a rare opportunity for emerging filmmakers to receive guidance on film development, marketing, and distribution.
Some renowned mentors who will be working with the selected semifinalists include: actor and writer Gbenga Akinnagbe, known for HBO’s The Wire and The Deuce; SVP of production at Paramount Pictures Mika Pryce; screenwriter and producer Nihaar Sinha, who worked on seminal films like Moonlight and The Holdovers; actress and filmmaker Djaka Souaré, who worked on projects like Jazz in Wakanda; and writer/director Zoey Martinson who worked on The Fisherman and Ziwe on Showtime.
“Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have for shifting narratives and creating a world in which every child has the opportunity to thrive. What makes this film lab so special is that it provides a space where emerging filmmakers can share the experiences of their own communities while lifting stories of connection and belonging. We at the Kellogg Foundation hope the films will help inspire genuine, respectful conversations on how we heal together,” the W.K. Kellogg Foundation said in a statement.
Here is a list of the semi-finalists selected:
Lanaa Dantzler: Filmmaker and actor Lanaa Dantzler, from West Philadelphia, brings an intimate portrait of Black girlhood in At the End of the World, which follows a teenage girl learning to practice love as an act of justice during a summer romance in Wildwood, New Jersey. Told in fragments, the film reflects on joy, art, and connection as acts of survival.
Jered Everson: In Minneapolis-based filmmaker Jered Everson’s intimate documentary project, the camera turns inward rather than outward. His untitled film offers an intimate portrait of Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, focusing on how she continues to heal privately after years of public activism. The film reframes racial healing not as closure, but as an ongoing practice rooted in truth-telling, care, and the quiet companionship of other mothers.
Samuel Hunter: Actor, writer, and producer, Samuel Hunter explores racial trauma as an internalized experience in A Meaningful Night. The film follows a young Black vlogger whose routine is upended after he witnesses and records a brutal murder, interrogating how violence is rationalized and how survival often demands moral compromise. Healing here is not resolution, but the reclamation of humanity.
Ty Kazy: For younger audiences, Grand Rapids–based animator Ty Kazy offers Wimee, an animated short that introduces racial healing through everyday childhood experiences. By focusing on moments like sharing toys or eating lunch together, the film explores equity, empathy, and fairness in an easily digestible way.
Edward Nguyen: Austin-raised, Saigon-born filmmaker Edward Nguyen contributes Sweat (Mồ Hôi), an ethereal meditation on displacement, time, and memory. The film follows a Vietnamese farm worker on the eve of leaving his rural town, capturing the quiet intimacy and emotional reckoning that unfolds as he and a fellow worker confront generational repression and fleeting connection.
Alexis Noble: Jackson, Mississippi–based cultural strategist Alexis Noble centers healing through memory and unity in One Good Picture. Set during a Black Southern family gathering, the film transforms a single photograph into an act of preservation. One Good Picture highlights how remembering and choosing to record one another can remedy undocumented histories.
David Quang Pham: Intergenerational and cross-cultural healing takes shape in Friend or Pho by award-winning playwright and filmmaker David Quang Pham. Set in a senior center kitchen, the film brings together an elderly Black Vietnam War veteran and a Vietnamese refugee guest teacher whose shared act of cooking becomes a bridge across decades of trauma, history, and silence.
Marcus Polk: New York–based filmmaker Marcus Polk imagines a future in Humanizer, where people live isolated under techno-authoritarian systems that outlaw art and dreaming. Through the journey of a solitary journalist who begins to dream and resist, the film views healing as an act of self-determination and collective liberation.
LaTajh Simmons-Weaver: Oakland-based director and producer LaTajh Simmons-Weaver explores childhood, bias, and belonging in That One Day They Told Us to Remember. Set in the aftermath of a national tragedy, the film follows two non-white elementary school girls whose playground fight is reframed as a threat. The film elucidates how quickly innocence can be stripped away and how healing can emerge through recognition rather than punishment.
Castel Sweet: Grounded in the American South, documentary filmmaker and sociologist Castel Sweet centers truth-telling as healing in her short film spotlighting the Behind the Big House program in Holly Springs, Mississippi. By shifting focus from plantation homes to the enslaved people whose knowledge and labor shaped the region, the film reclaims ancestral expertise and reframes history as a collective act of restoration.
After their short films are complete, five finalists will be selected to premiere their projects during an event taking place June 23-25 in Chicago. Each finalist will also receive a $10,000 reward and resources needed to host a screening in their local communities.