Priscillia Kounkou-Hoveyda
Priscillia is a filmmaker (Where My Memory Began, We Will Be Who We Are, First Time My Family Met Me) and the founder of the Collective for Black Iranians and Siyah productions, both hubs for the production of films, oral stories, music and histories that stand at Black/African and Iranian intersections.
A recovering human rights lawyer (Sorbonne Law School, New York University School of Law), Priscillia has worked with the United Nations in conflict affected areas negotiating for the release of children in armed groups and implementing socio-economic reintegration programming.
For almost a decade now, Priscillia has swapped her human rights hat for that of the storyteller she has always been. She directs and produces visual stories that go beyond existing single narratives about marginalised Black populations in underrepresented parts of the world.
A drop-out of the prestigious University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, Priscillia’s work with both of her production houses pursues her childhood dream— formed while growing up in Tehran, Iran—of centring Black Iranian narratives in the larger fabric of what it means to be Iranian. Her work is a creative response to racial erasure in Iran and the larger Southwest Asia and North African (SWANA) region.