Ownership Track
IP, business formation, and distribution literacy. Micheaux owned every film he made. Most programs teach you to get hired. This one teaches you to own the work.
Talent is everywhere. Access is not.
ASCEND, The Micheaux Roadshow 2027
The Legacy
Oscar Micheaux American, 1884–1951
Author · Producer · Distributor · Owner
Hollywood had no door for him. So he built the house.
The first major Black feature filmmaker in America. Shut out by Hollywood, he wrote, produced, distributed, and owned more than forty films, selling shares farm to farm and church to church.
The Vision
An institution for Black filmmakers and every storyteller the industry has not learned to see.
We close the gap between being discovered and building a career.
Issa Rae at the 2025 Micheaux Film Festival.
The Missing Middle
No film school. No mentor. No way in yet.
The field calls them hard to reach. We call them the point.
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01
Talent without credentials
No MFA, no connections, no map.
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Voices rarely reached
Storytellers from foster care and the justice system.
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Stories found nowhere else
Young people whose voices aren't in any writers' room yet.
From Festival to Institute
The festival grew into an institution.
2018
The festival is founded
The Micheaux Film Festival opens in Los Angeles, a stage built for filmmakers the industry overlooked.
2026
The transition begins
The festival pauses and begins its next chapter within the Institute.
2028
The Institute opens
25,000+Audience members
1,000+Filmmakers showcased
Est. 2018The festival
2025 Micheaux Film Festival The Culver Theater
The festival creates the moment of discovery. The Institute turns that moment into a career.
Festival partners have included
The Oscar Micheaux Executives and Creatives to Know
April 2027
The first program presented under the Institute name, honoring the executives and creatives shaping what comes next and putting emerging filmmakers in the room with them.
The Model
From discovery to a working career.
Once a filmmaker is discovered, these programs build what comes next.
Industry Path
Placement, apprenticeships, and production access. The doors Micheaux never got, opened on purpose.
The Micheaux Roadshow
Oscar Micheaux took his films city to city when no one else would show them. The Roadshow carries that tradition forward, bringing new independent films to audiences across the country.
Impact & Community
The work is already in the room.
Social change storytelling is our founding instinct. Year round, we mentor young people experiencing homelessness, with guest speakers from across the industry. Some have already worked the festival from the inside.
The Founders' Wall
It is being built now.
Be among the first names on it. The people who fund, advise, and build the Institute over the next two years will be on this wall for decades.
Founders' Wall
The first names are being written now.
The Institute operates under the fiscal sponsorship of Riggle Me That Productions, a 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions are made to Riggle Me That Productions and restricted to the Oscar Micheaux Film & Media Institute.
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Founding Partners
Studios and companies ready to put their infrastructure behind the pipeline.
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Funders
Philanthropies and individuals building an institution, not sponsoring an event.
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Advisors
Industry leaders joining the founding advisory circle.
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Storytellers
If you see yourself in the missing middle, we are building this for you.
Stay Close
Be first to hear what comes next