Doc Fellows 2025 - 2026

Sisters in Cinema, a Chicago based 501(c)3 non-profit with an inclusive mission to center and celebrate Black girls, women, and gender expansive media makers, announced today their 2025-2026 cohort for the Sisters in Cinema Documentary Fellowship, an initiative created to support Black women and gender expansive non-fiction directors.

Six Documentary Fellows, Elodie Edjang, Jordan Barrant, Jada Buford, kelechi agwuncha, Leah Gipson, and Sandria M. Washington will each receive a grant for their documentary film project, fiscal sponsorship and individually tailored mentorship, which focuses on both professional and project development.

The new cohort of Chicago-based fellows uses their art to highlight various issues. They explore the intersections and boundaries of faith, race, and radically inclusive love (Elodie Edjang, Queer Christians); examine archival information regarding a friendship between two Black lesbian friends with a 50-year age difference (Jordan Barrant, Sisters and Spirit: Executive Sweet); investigate the history of Black education in America (Jada Buford, The Marva Collins Way); look into how incarcerated women engage in practices of breathwork and mindfulness (kelechi agwuncha, breath to breath); address the five-year aftermath of the Gulf South's uncertainties due to coastal damage (Leah Gipson, Staring at the Dark); and uncover the invisible stories of four late-discovery Black adoptees challenging the legacy of secrecy, stigma, shame, and silence within their families and society (Sandria M. Washington, Black Elephants).

“We are excited to welcome our 2025-2026 Sisters in Cinema Documentary Fellowship cohort of incredible storytellers and thinkers.” said Yvonne Welbon, CEO & Founder of Sisters in Cinema. “With the opening of the Sisters in Cinema Media Arts Center in 2024, we decided to continue to shine a spotlight on Chicago filmmakers with this cohort and provide support to local talent.”

2025-2026 Sisters in Cinema Documentary Fellows

kelechi agwuncha (Chicago, IL & New Mexico)
kelechi agwuncha is an Igbo-American filmmaker, video and sound artist based between New Mexico and Chicago. Their work reanimates archival material, documentation, and sound to explore performance endurance, athletic gestures, and embodied memory. kelechi's installations and moving image works have been presented at institutions and festivals such as MoMA PS1, Black Harvest Film Festival, and Currents New Media Festival. They hold an MFA from UC San Diego and studied in the Isaac Julien Lab at UC Santa Cruz. Through the fellowship, Kelechi will develop breath to breath, a documentary short that centers on the Yoga in Prison program at Springer Correctional Facility in Springer, New Mexico—a peer-led weekly course where incarcerated women practice breathwork and mindfulness.

Jordan Barrant (Chicago, IL)
Jordan Barrant is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator from Boston, Massachusetts who is deeply vested in Black life. She holds a BA in Women’s Studies from Spelman College and a Masters in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through a research based practice, she gestures towards the improvisational methodology those before her have utilized, and centers the lives and archives of queer, Southern and Caribbean communities. Her work has been supported through grants by the Ignite Fund and Modern Ancient Brown and residencies with Artpace San Antonio. Her bachelor's thesis, Sisters and Spirit: Angela Denise Davis looked to the life of a Black lesbian ordained minister in Atlanta. The Sisters and Spirit: Executive Sweet experimental documentary that Jordan will work on throughout the fellowship employs archival investigation and interviews, as two Black lesbian friends—with a 50-year age difference—plan a party for their Black lesbian kin.

Jada Buford (Chicago, IL)
Jada Buford is a filmmaker from Chicago, IL. She holds a BA in film from Howard University and an MFA in Creative Producing from Columbia University. Her thesis film, Sing a Black Girl Song, is scheduled for release in Fall 2025. Jada’s filmmaking journey began as a subject in Steve James’ docuseries America To Me, sparking her passion for storytelling. Her work focuses on telling nuanced Black narratives in history and culture. She advocates for marginalized voices both in front and behind the camera. Jada has worked and interned for companies such as Participant Media, ABC Entertainment, and the Television Academy Foundation. She is committed to producing powerful, socially conscious stories that spark dialogue and promote social change. The The Marva Collins Way documentary that Jada will work on throughout the fellowship focuses on how in 1975, during a national education crisis, educator Marva Collins started a school on Chicago’s West Side and became known for her unique teaching methods. The Marva Collins Way explores Collins life and legacy, along with exploring the history of Black education in America, and showing her impact in the continual fight for equitable education in the US.

Elodie Edjang (Chicago, IL)
Elodie Edjang (she/her) is a French-born, Atlanta-raised, Cameroonian filmmaker based in Chicago whose work blends narrative and documentary forms. She is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Documentary Media MFA program. Her short doc, Book of Daniel (2018), screened at Tacoma Film Festival and Black Harvest. Her work-in-progress, Queer Christians, is a 2020 NeXt Doc Flex Fund recipient, 2023 Sisters in Cinema Documentary Fellowship finalist, and 2023 Chicago DCASE grant recipient. She is also co-directing a film about Kartemquin Films’ co-founder, Gordon Quinn. Elodie is a member of The Reservoir Collective, awarded the Hyde Park Art Center’s Artist Run Fund and Crossroads’ 2024 Seed Fund. She is committed to community building and artist development and has held leadership roles in programs supported by the Alliance of Documentary Editors, Mezcla Media Collective, and Full Spectrum Features. The Queer Christians project that Elodie will work on throughout the fellowship highlights four queer Christian women of color. The women revel in moments of exuberant joy while wrestling with what is gained and lost when leaving one home to build a new one.

Leah Ra'chel Gipson (Chicago, IL)
Leah Ra’chel Gipson is a multidisciplinary artist from Panama City, Florida, currently based in Chicago, Illinois. Her work explores ideas of place through family history, popular media, and archives using image, sound, textile, installation, and film. She is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Art Therapy and Counseling Department. Her work has been featured at the South Side Community Art Center, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Netflix Queue, Project Row Houses, Nawat Fes, Morocco, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. She was awarded a 2024 Creative Capital Award for Staring at the Dark, a documentary film and environmental justice project. Throughout the fellowship, Leah Ra'chel will work on, Staring at the Dark, an experimental documentary that focuses on a historically African American neighborhood in the Gulf South facing the uncertainties of life under coastal danger. The end of a disaster is only the beginning.

Sandria Washington (Chicago, IL)
Sandria M. Washington is a writer, media maker, well-being ambassador and emerging filmmaker proudly representing Chicago’s South Side. She is also #BlackAndAdopted. Sandria is co-founder of Black to the Beginning, an initiative to amplify the multi-faceted and often overlooked Black Adoption Experience, and also co-host of The Black Adoption Podcast. She believes that the way to change a narrative is to change the narrator, and aspires to create social change through filmmaking. The Black Elephants project that Sandria will work on throughout the fellowship reveals the invisible stories of four late discovery Black adoptees disrupting the legacy of secrecy, stigma, shame and silence in their
families and society.

Doc Fellows 2025 - 2026

Sisters in Cinema Fiscal Sponsorship

Team Leaderboard

Team Members