NOVAC

Alejandro de los Rios is a Cuban-Venezuelan filmmaker based in New Orleans. As the Virtuous Video Producer for NOVAC, he creates documentaries and promotional content for community-based organizations and non-profit organizations. He’s also a mentor in NOVAC’s award-winning Community Cohort Filmmaking program. Alejandro’s credits include: “Distant Mardi Gras” & “Different Mardi Gras” documenting Covid’s impact on New Orleans, its artists and culture bearers; “9 for No. 9,” a documentary series on NFL quarterback Drew Brees; “m.a.m.i.” a sci-fi short directed under the mentorship of Werner Herzog; and “Jalapeño Andretti,” a comedy spoof of machismo car culture. Alejandro was selected to the 2017 New Orleans Film Festival Emerging Voices Director's program and participated in the 2019 Edition of South Pitch with his short film "Contrabanda."

Gian Francisco Smith is a New Orleans based, multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer. In Spring 2011 Gian was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition following a successful run of several commercials featuring his original poetry on HBO’s “Treme.” Smith has continued his spoken word through his open mic “Pass It On” going into its 15th year. He has notably worked on several pieces commissioned by the NBA New Orleans Pelicans including his New Orleans Black History poem “For the Culture” and performed voice over work for the New Orleans Saints. Smith’s film franchise “The Adulterer” has screened in almost 20 film festivals around the country winning “Best Narrative Short” at the Festival of Cinema NYC 2018. The Gene Siskel Institute in Chicago, by way of the Black Harvest festival, sponsored Smith’s next work through a generous grant, and ultimately a nomination for the Ellen Sandor award, the festival’s top prize, for his original short “love tap.” Gian’s 2021 film “Tucker’s War” closed out its festival run picking up a third award for best feature winner at the Hip Hop film festival in Harlem. 2021 also saw Smith receive a fellowship with the New Orleans Film Society’s Emerging Voices Program. Currently Smith is serving as festival director for the annual Black Film Festival of New Orleans which he founded in 2018, and as Creative Services coordinator at NOVAC while he works to complete his short-to-feature film “The Capitalist” which has already received the Founder’s Circle Award and a $3,000 grant at LA Film Prize 2023.

Kelsey Scult is a New Orleans-based filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist. Her work explores the processing of inherited memory, the psychic untangling of intimate partner violence and the physical intersection of desire and decay. Films Kelsey has produced have played at Sundance, SXSW, Frameline, Outfest, and more. She produced the Sundance Award-winning feature film “Ma Belle, My Beauty” directed by Marion Hill which opened in over 40 theaters nationwide and was acquired for domestic and international distribution. She is an alumna of the New Orleans Film Society's Southern Producers Lab, The Gotham’s Narrative Lab, and the Southern Foodways Alliance Filmmaker Residency. She has exhibited her installation work across the country and abroad, including locally at The Front, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Antenna, Tulane’s Carroll Gallery, and The Parlour Gallery. She was a founding member of Lucky Art Fair, New Orleans’ first Contemporary Art Fair. She received her BA from Oberlin College in Studio Art and her MFA from the University of New Orleans in Film. She is the Co-President of The Front Gallery in New Orleans, and Manager of Creative Services at the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC).