Episode 23: Cristina Dunlap, The Cinematographer From "American Fiction" Talks The Visual Side Of The Film

As a cinematographer, Cristina Dunlap’s passion is fueled by the belief that people can be brought together by a shared visual experience, so she finds a way to visually translate someone's inner most thoughts and feelings to an audience through movement, lighting, and color.

Cristina on the set of American Fiction with director, Cord Jefferson | Photo Provided By: Cristina Dunlap

Cristina on set with actor Jeffrey Wright | Photo Provided By: Cristina Dunlap

American Fiction is her most recent film project, about a man dealing with the internal challenges of not being able to relate to people, of feeling society’s pressures telling him how a Black person is supposed to act, and family drama – sibling rivalry, an aging parent, the past and the present butting up against each other all the time. Shot in 26 days, it spoke to Director Cord Jefferson and the crew, as it is both a trenchant satire and a poignant story of a family and a man at a crossroads.  

Photo Credit: Tram Kolluri

So far it has won numerous awards from the 2023 People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was named one of the Top 10 films of 2023 by the American Film Institute, and has received nominations including PGA Awards, Critics Choice, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Awards.

A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2009, Cristina is a tenth generation Californian and a first-generation filmmaker. She did the cinematography for the 2022 film Cha Cha Real Smooth, and for Am I Ok? And, she’s done the cinematography for Lizzo, Coldplay, Kali Uchis, The Chainsmokers, Katy Perry, and most recently for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. She also has some filming credits under her belt. In 2018 she filmed Brandi Carlile’s music video for Party of One.

Episode 21: Eugenia Kuzmina: From Soviet Russia, To Paris’ Top Runways, To Acting and Comedy

Eugenia Kuzmina is a Russian-American, born during the Soviet era in all its hardships, who was discovered as a model on the streets of Moscow, and from that moment, her life changed. Her life has ebbed and it flows from the world of fashion, where she has walked for luxury brands and worked with the most notable of fashion designers from Alexander McQueen, Mugler, Viktor&Rolf, Karl Lagerfeld, Alber Elbaz, and Vivienne Westwood- to name a few. And it has extended now, to the worlds of film and comedy. A good-hearted soul, we all need a Eugenia Kuzmina in our lives.

Episode 16: Sherrynorth Lamisi Attakora’s Story Of Survival From Human Trafficking

A native of Ghana, she details her escape from domestic worker abuse

Sherrynorth is known as ‘Misi Resilience’ by those who know her best, was like many women on the African continent, who leave home to work as domestic workers because they need to make more money to provide for their families in their countries. Originally from Ghana, she was conned by a fellow Ghanaian that she trusted, who acted like an agency and arranged her travel to Kurdistan to work for a family, but everything went extremely wrong after that. Sherrynorth was later trafficked to Iraq and underwent the worst horrors of what domestic workers fear: rape, beatings, human degradation, mental attacks that she trusted no one. Her story could be a movie. But, it is her faith in God and the will to fight that got her through. Now back in Ghana, Sherrynorth helps other domestic workers, educating them on the realities of being a domestic worker, and provides them with the resources they need if they have negative experiences like hers.

Episode 15: Alessandra De Tommasi Gets Real On What It’s Really Like Being An Entertainment Journalist

Alessandra De Tommasi is one of the entertainment industry’s top journalists, writing for Vanity Fair Italia, Vogue Italia, Cosmopolitan Italia, and others. You’ll find her at the Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Toronto, Zurich, Berlin, Monaco, and others in press junkets sitting front row and asking the most intelligent of questions to actors and directors. Alessandra is a sharp thinker, but most importantly she’s a beyond kind person. Her heart is deep and she’s always in a happy mood, making the most stressful of days at a film festival a delight to see her.

Born into a family of farmers in Lecce, Italy, she was destined to work all things tobacco. But, her teachers and an uncle could see she was meant for the learned world, and she went to Rome on a university scholarship. Ale, as I call her, has sat down and interviewed some of the film and TV industry’s most renowned actors from Scarlett Johansson, Tom Cruise, Cynthia Nixon, and Julia Roberts- and these are just a few names.

In the interview we talk about her journey from Lecce to where she is now, the hardships of being an entertainment journalist in these times, the exciting moments of the job, our private moment we had with Leonardo di Caprio and Casey Affleck, and no matter how stressful the industry can get, why she wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.