Cynthis Kersey Biography

Hol­ly­wood Career Strate­gist and Film Con­sul­tant Tanya Kersey is best known as the Founder and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Hol­ly­wood Black Film Festival, where she is respon­si­ble for the over­all orga­ni­za­tion, man­age­ment and admin­is­tra­tion of one of the lead­ing black film fes­ti­vals in the world.

As as Hol­ly­wood Career Strate­gist and Film Con­sul­tant, Tanya helps every­one from begin­ners to vet­er­ans start, build and grow their career in Hol­ly­wood. She pro­vides career infor­ma­tion and tal­ent devel­op­ment resources to film­mak­ers, actors, writ­ers, direc­tors and pro­duc­ers that will help edu­cate, enlighten and empower them to achieve their goals in the enter­tain­ment indus­try and accel­er­ate the process.

Named an Urban Hol­ly­wood Mover and Shaker by Daily Vari­ety, Tanya also runs The Kersey Group, a bou­tique con­sult­ing firm which pro­vides film, media & busi­ness devel­op­ment con­sult­ing ser­vices on a broad range of enter­tain­ment industry-related projects includ­ing mar­ket­ing, dis­tri­b­u­tion, strate­gic busi­ness plan­ning, busi­ness devel­op­ment and pro­gram­ming for film, tele­vi­sion and new media. The com­pany offers spe­cial­ized exper­tise on the urban and mul­ti­cul­tural mar­kets, and cre­ates capacity-building and brand­ing pro­grams for devel­op­ing film com­mu­ni­ties and coun­tries.

The Hol­ly­wood Black Film Fes­ti­val draws together estab­lished film­mak­ers, pop­u­lar film and TV stars, writ­ers, direc­tors, indus­try exec­u­tives, emerg­ing artists and new audi­ences from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and around the world. Under Tanya’s direc­tion, HBFF plays an inte­gral role is dis­cov­er­ing and launch­ing inde­pen­dent film and film­mak­ers by bring­ing them to the atten­tion of the indus­try, press and pub­lic. To date, HBFF has screened more than 1,100 fea­ture, short, stu­dent and doc­u­men­tary films from film­mak­ers from all over the world.

Tanya also cre­ated com­ple­men­tary plat­forms to show­case and develop film­mak­ers’ projects — the Info­tain­ment Con­fer­ence, the HBFF Cin­ema Lounge, the HBFF Screen­ing Series, the HBFF Film Finance & Dis­tri­b­u­tion Sum­mit, and the HBFF Sto­ry­teller Com­pe­ti­tion.

Prior to HBFF and TKG, Tanya was the founder and CEO of the enter­tain­ment indus­try trade pub­li­ca­tion Black Tal­ent New and its com­pan­ion web­site, BlackTalentNews.com. As a well-known enter­tain­ment jour­nal­ist, Tanya cov­ered a vari­ety of high-profile events such as the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, Indie Spirit Awards, SAG Awards, BET Awards, People’s Choice Awards, and the NAACP Image Awards. She con­ducted count­less celebrity inter­views with such luma­naries as Oscar win­ners Halle Berry, Jen­nifer Hud­son, Jamie Foxx, Mor­gan Free­man and Mo’Nique, as well as Samuel L. Jack­son, Ice Cube, Angela Bas­sett, and the late Bernie Mac, to name just a few. And she was fre­quently seen on Reelz Channel’s “Reelz in the Round,” and on the Biog­ra­phy Channel’s “Famous.” Finally, Tanya was a sta­ple on “Samm Brown for the Record” on KPFK (90.7 FM) as a con­trib­u­tor and co-host, and she pro­duced and hosted the pop­u­lar Inter­net radio show, “Inside Urban Hol­ly­wood.”

Tanya is a pop­u­lar pub­lic speaker and work­shop leader who has spo­ken for the Whar­ton School at the Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia, the Birm­ing­ham Busi­ness Alliance, Busi­ness­wire, Con­gres­sional Black Cau­cus Leg­isla­tive Con­fer­ence, Colum­bia Col­lege, Writ­ers Boot Camp Diver­sity Busi­ness Brunch, the Insti­tute for Inter­na­tional Film Financ­ing, and Show­biz Expo, to name just a few. She has also authored sev­eral books includ­ing Black State of the Arts: A Guide to Devel­op­ing a Suc­cess­ful Career as a Black Per­form­ing Artist, The Black Film Report, and the Urban Hol­ly­wood Resource Direc­tory.

Tanya has now set her sights on mak­ing a global state­ment by tak­ing HBFF and TKG abroad, bring­ing her brand of ‘edu­ca­tion, enlight­en­ment and empow­er­ment’ to the Dias­pora, and con­sult­ing with coun­tries with bur­geon­ing enter­tain­ment industries.

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