Production Team

Donna Guillaume is an Emmy-nominated television producer known for her creativity, experience, and dedication to impactful storytelling across media and politics. She began her career at Channel 2 News and the CBS Evening News bureau in Los Angeles, later producing the KCBS newsmagazine Two on the Town.

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She co-created and executive produced HBO’s long-running animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, and her documentary credits include Unchained Memories, Middle School Confessions, Reading Their Hearts Out (all on HBO), Passion and Memory (PBS), and John Lewis: Get in the Way (PBS).

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A Harvard graduate, Donna has received a Cable Ace Award, a Christopher Award, the Humanitas Prize, and multiple Emmy nominations. She is a founding board chair of Artists for a New South Africa, and a former board member of TransAfrica Forum, and currently serves as vice-president on the Board of the Getty House Foundation. She is a member of the DGA, NABJ, and BAD West, and a supporter of Girls Inc., Big Sisters of L.A., and the National Foster Youth Institute.

Charles Floyd Johnson is a veteran film and television producer with over four decades of experience. His credits include Red Tails, the acclaimed Lucasfilm feature on the Tuskegee Airmen, and the PBS documentary John Lewis: Get in the Way. Charles is a 3x Emmy winner, 7x Emmy nominee, and trailblazing television executive.

He began his career on The Rockford Files and went on to executive produce hit series like Magnum P.I., Quantum Leap, JAG, and NCIS. His work has earned numerous awards and widespread recognition for its creative excellence.

Massey has produced and directed numerous films and TV shows, including Men of Courage, which won an NAACP Image Award and aired on BET, and Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win, a documentary on Ghana's 31st December Women’s Movement. He also produced Fespaco, a documentary narrated by Danny Glover, and six short films, such as Island Song, which won the Audience Award at the 2014 Pan African Film Festival. His 2015 documentary When Justice Isn’t Just explored law enforcement shootings of unarmed African Americans.

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His recent work includes Where We’re From, a documentary about the LA independent hip-hop scene, Not All Lost, a PBS reality show, Hinika, a documentary about a new hospital in Ethiopia, Passage, a historical film set in 1600s West Africa, and Golden Flower, a short film about Taino culture. He also produced the documentary 612: Darkness in the Land of Nice.

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A former co-chair of the Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers, West (BAD-West), Massey has received several awards, including the PBS Innovation Award and the NEA’s “Advancement of Learning Through Broadcasting” award. He is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves on its Executive Committee for the Short Film Branch and the Academy Museum Subcommittee.

Sam Pollard is an acclaimed American filmmaker with a distinguished career spanning decades in directing, editing, and producing film and television. He is renowned for his collaborations with Spike Lee, editing films such as Mo’ Better Blues and Bamboozled, and co-producing the Oscar-nominated Four Little Girls and Emmy-winning When the Levees Broke.

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Pollard has directed powerful documentaries including Slavery by Another Name (PBS), August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand (American Masters), Two Trains Runnin’, Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, MLK/FBI, and Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children. Recent projects include the series Why We Hate (Discovery) and HBO’s Black Art: In the Absence of Light and Citizen Ashe.

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His work has earned numerous accolades including Peabody and Emmy Awards and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, the International Documentary Association honored him with a Career Achievement Award. Spike Lee calls Pollard “a master filmmaker,” and Henry Louis Gates Jr. praises his documentaries as a vital body of work chronicling African-American history.

Diem Van Groth is a writer, director, producer, and seasoned executive with 20+ years of global experience in media, metaverse tech, corporate strategy, and urban planning. He began his career at 16 in finance before leading global brand strategy at New Zealand’s International Trade Agency, supporting companies across film, media, and tech.

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Diem founded DigiMC and GVBACK LLC, launched MetaCampus, and managed blues legend JJ “Bad Boy” Jones. He also became the leading importer of Hungarian wine in the U.S., celebrating Hungarian contributions to Hollywood and California wine.

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He co-created GVBACK Tuesday with his son to support global service work and is executive producer of Trace the Line, and writer/producer/director of 612 and the upcoming Heart Beats Film (2025).

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Frank Dawson is a media executive, producer, and educator. He served as Dean of the Center for Media and Design at Santa Monica College and Chair of the Communication and Media Studies Department after years as a tenured professor.

He is also a founding partner of NuHouse Media Group, originally launched in partnership with CBS Entertainment Productions. Frank currently develops projects independently and is the co-producer/director of the documentary Agents of Change.

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His career began in radio before moving into advertising at Benton & Bowles (NYC) and later joining CBS Television in Los Angeles, where he wrote and produced network promos. At Universal Television, he served as Director of Comedy Development and Director of Programming, overseeing shows like Charles in Charge, Miami Vice, and He’s The Mayor.

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Frank holds a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.S. from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, where he was inducted into its distinguished alumni gallery.

Melvin Donalson is an American scholar, author, filmmaker, playwright, and poet. He holds academic degrees from Bates College (B.A.), the University of Iowa (M.A.), and Brown University (Ph.D.). Donalson has taught African American Studies, American Literature, Women’s Studies, and Creative Writing at various institutions, including Bates College, the University of California-Santa Barbara, Pasadena City College, UCLA, and California State University-Los Angeles. His research in the Humanities and Social Sciences has led to academic and literary publications, including several books: Cornerstones: An Anthology of African American Literature, Black Directors in Hollywood, Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Films, and Hip Hop in American Cinema.

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Additionally, Donalson has worked as a film analyst for New World Pictures, a scriptwriter for DIC Comics, and a writer/researcher for Creative Imagery Productions. As a filmmaker, he wrote and directed two short films: A Room Without Doors (1998), starring Michael Beach and Dick Anthony Williams, and Performance (2008), which featured Art Evans and Nisa Ward. In 2017, he wrote the one-act play The Corner, which was performed at the Paul Robeson Theater Festival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. In the same year, he wrote, produced, and directed his original play Shout (2017), staged at the Fremont Theater in South Pasadena, California.

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Donalson has published poetry, short stories, and essays in a variety of publications. In 2025, he completed his autobiography, Dream Warrior: Passages of a Creative-Scholar, published by Sunbury Press.

Beverly A. Tate holds a B.A. and M.A. from Pepperdine University and has extensive experience in public education. She taught English composition in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), where she was selected as a Mentor and Master Teacher. Tate then spent 15 years as a professor at Pasadena City College, teaching African-American Literature, Intercultural Communications, and composition. She also served as the College's Diversity Initiative Coordinator, organizing lectures by nationally recognized authors.

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Tate's work includes critical essays in the Encyclopedia of African-American Literature (2007), poetry in the Altadena Literary Review (2020), and children's books such as Being Grace (2020), Being Grace: Bunnies on a Trolley (2021), and Being Grace: Baba and the Great Trike Race (2022).

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In 2015, she founded Tate's Consultant Services (TCS), LLC, an educational consulting firm focused on promoting literacy. TCS collaborates with Luis J. and Trini Rodriguez’s Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore on two literacy initiatives. Black and Latino Men Read (BLMR) encourages reading among Black and Latino male students in high school and college through an annual essay contest with financial awards. Her latest initiative, Young Women of Color Read (YWOCR), launched in March 2023, is an essay contest for young women of color in their senior year of high school.

Xavier A. Santiago is an award-winning producer, actor, director, and writer based between New York City and London. Through his company, Saint Productions, he has produced commercials, documentaries, and films, with clients including Animal Planet, Mahatma Rice, and Carolina Rice. He currently has two films in post-production and several in development, with past projects including collaborations with Emmy-winning actor Matthew Rhys and veteran producer Doug Claybourne. Xavier also serves as Festival Director for the International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival and remains active in community advocacy in East Harlem and the South Bronx.