Black Film Space is proud to serve as the fiscal sponsor for the short film BOOK CLUB.

Black Film Space's fiscal sponsorship program allows for members to use its 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt status to receive tax-deductible donations on the film's behalf and solicit charitable contributions throughout the production process.

BOOK CLUB has been chosen after careful evaluation from our board, and we believe it supports our mission to provide career advancing opportunities for Black filmmakers.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

PROJECT TYPE: Pilot
GENRE: Comedy
PROJECT STATUS: Pre-Production
WRITER/SHOWRUNNER: Aissata Bah
DIRECTOR: Kristian Arnell Hardy
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Nana Afia Boadi-Acheampong
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Christy Knudson

LOGLINE:

A quirky nerd struggling to find her place posts an unhinged story on a fictional storytelling app–causing hysteria, censorship, & unlikely alliances. Book Club is a culturally-grounded comedy series about self-discovery, middle school angst, and the power of literary freedom in identity formation.

SYNOPSIS:

Book Club is a half-hour comedy that follows the experiences of middle school students in a small town and their relationships with Scribe (a fictional app for user-created stories). AMINA, the quiet class smarty, quickly becomes an overnight online sensation after publishing a story about a dysfunctional couple inspired by her parents’ relationship. The town eventually bans Scribe, so Amina and her peers hatch a plan to keep the app alive. Amina quickly realizes that keeping her writing a secret from school administrators and her family is going to be much harder than she thought.

For young adults of marginalized identities, our first glimpses of relatable, authentic on-screen representation were through accessing emerging platforms for user-created stories. Book Club revisits how Black youth turned to these digital platforms to discover their multitudes and live out their dreams.

In the current climate of widespread book banning, user-created stories must fill insurmountable gaps for marginalized youth who may not be able to identify with the books in their school curriculum or local libraries. Limiting what gets to be read and therefore written has a cascading impact on limiting how people learn about and subsequently express aspects of their identities. More than ever before, adolescents are looking online to find the forbidden stories that are ultimately just the stories of their lives. Book Club is a love letter to these kids and all of the storytellers and story readers that came before them.

TEAM

AISSATA BAH, (Writer/Showrunner)

Aissata Bah (writer/showrunner) - Aissata Bah is a dramedy writer-director from a small town outside of Atlanta, GA. Despite taking 6 creative writing courses at Harvard, she graduated with Bachelor’s degrees in Statistics and Gender Studies because she refused to take English courses about old white men. Aissata strives to tell stories that explore the beauty of Black interiority, typically via revisiting subaltern experiences of recent historical moments in whimsical, unhinged, and critically fabulated ways. Aissata’s writing has led her to be selected as a finalist for the 2025 Writers Guild Foundation Writers’ Access Support Staff Training Program, a member of the inaugural Sonder Writer’s Incubator Class, and a T. Howard Foundation Scott Weiss Scholarship awardee. Previously worked for Disney and HBO in audience strategy and research roles. Currently at YouTube.

KRISTIAN ARNELL HARDY, ( Director)

Kristian Hardy (director) - Kristian Arnell is a multi-hyphenate artist whose work spans directing, performance, writing, and intimacy coordination. She is passionate about illuminating the multiplicities of Black womanhood/girlhood, themes central to her original one-woman show "A Sweet Tea Communion." Kristian recently served as Associate Director on the indie TV pilot "12to21" and consistently advocates for joy-filled, equitable, and brave creative environments. A Harvard graduate and recipient of the Louise Donovan Award and Maurice Sedwell Prize, select stage directing credits include "The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin" and "All the Natalie Portmans." Based in Nashville, she is Mosaic Changemakers’ inaugural King Future Changemaker Resident and a Soho House mentee.

NANA AFIA BOADI-ACHEAMPONG, (Executive Producer)

Nana Afia Boadi-Acheampong (executive producer) - Nana Afia Boadi-Acheampong is a director, editor, and producer whose devotion to stories sprouted during her brief childhood in Accra but grew after moving to Massachusetts at six years old. There, feeling lost in the new country her family had settled in, she realized the reprieve, excitement, and catharsis that good stories could provide. Today, Nana Afia makes narrative, conceptual, and music video works that explore the complexity of human relationships and the struggle to build identity. To understand production workflows and the makings of a riveting story, Nana Afia has taken on development and programming internships at HBO, HBO Max, and AMC Networks, and was most recently selected as the Television Academy Foundation's 2026 Directing Intern. These undertakings slot among her varied education and professional experiences in production, development, scripted programming, team management, & cinematic arts.

CHRISTY KNUDSON, (Cinematographer)

Christy Knudson (director of photography) - Christy Knudson is a Cinematographer and 1st AC based out of Los Angeles, California. She was born and raised in Walnut Creek, CA and studied at Santa Barbara City College before moving to Los Angeles to further pursue a career in film production. Her background in art as a whole has influenced her cinematography style heavily, and has allowed her to introduce different aspects of multiple mediums into her work.

Book Club

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