Many Lumens with Maori Karmael Holmes BlackStar

Maori talks with filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, the brilliant co-creator and showrunner of FX’s breakout hit Reservation Dogs. Filmed in this home state of Oklahoma, the sitcom follows the lives of four Native teenagers living on a reservation who are on a mission to head to California while dealing with the death of their friend. He is also the director of the short films Goodnight, Irene (2005) and Four Sheets to the Wind (2007), which premiered at Sundance. Maori and Sterlin discuss working in O...

In this episode, Maori talks with critically-acclaimed director, writer, and actor Cherien Dabis. Cherien is known for directing episodes of Only Murders In the Building, Ozark, and Ramy. In addition to her work in television, Cherien has had a prolific career as an independent filmmaker with her films May in Summer and her groundbreaking 2009 debut feature, Amreeka, which depicted the life of a Palestinian single mother in small-town Indiana. In their discussion, Cherien talks about her dire...

In this episode, Maori talks with her friend, D’Lo, a Tamil-Sri Lankan-American actor and writer who uses humor to discuss family, gender, and sexuality. Beyond his stand-up and multi-character solo shows, D’Lo has appeared on popular TV shows like Looking, Mr. Robot, Sense 8, and the new Quantum Leap. Most recently, he appeared in the feature film Bros. D’Lo shares how being trans was his first training in performance, how 1990s hip hop taught him to be outspoken, and why we should tal...

Maori talks with LA-based curator and writer Meg Onli, whose work attends to the intricacies of race and the production of space. She is the co-curator of the 2024 Whitney Biennial, previously served as the director and curator of the now-shuttered The Underground Museum in Los Angeles, and was prior to that the Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Meg tells Maori about growing up in LA, what exhibits transformed her, the curators that inspire her, and what ...

Maori chats with cinematographer Michael "Cambio" Fernandez. Cambio's credits as a DP include the award-winning projects The Burial of Kojo, directed by Blitz Bazawule; Beyoncé's Black Is King; Walter Thompson-Hernandez's If I Go Will They Miss Me; and most recently, Sing J. Lee's The Accidental Getaway Driver. In this episode Cambio talks about his non-traditional path to working in film, how his spirituality is reflected on set, and what he learned touring with an indie hip-hop collec...

Maori talks with award-winning producer/director Lisa Cortés and model and advocate turned filmmaker Bethann Hardison, who worked together on the documentary Invisible Beauty, about Bethann’s life. In the episode we hear how they both got their start and navigated their trailblazing careers without roadmaps. Maori also finds out how they met in “a New York that doesn’t exist anymore” and how Bethann, a “reluctant hero,” became both the subject and co-director of the film, after decades of adv...