What is FTW Connects?
FTW Connects links up mentors with mentees for a single hour-long Q&A session over Zoom. Check out our latest episode below!
In this zoom Q&A session, mentees got a chance to chat with Burning Cane director/writer Phillip Youmans on finding confidence in your voice and making your first feature.
Pull out that notebook and take notes on all of the valuable industry advice you may have missed! Then follow @freethework on Instagram and stayed locked on freethework.com for the next FTW Connects, exclusively for those with a FTW profile.
Phillip Youmans
Phillip Youmans is a filmmaker from the 7th Ward of New Orleans. Phillip was first introduced to filmmaking as an actor, taking small roles in productions around New Orleans. This early exposure to working on sets ignited Phillip's desire to pursue the medium from behind the camera. Before high school, Phillip began writing, directing, shooting, and editing his own short films. During his high school years at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Phillip solidified his technical foundation of filmmaking in their media arts program. In his junior year, Phillip began work on his first feature film BURNING CANE. His most recent video installation titled, "Won’t You Celebrate with Me," premiered through Solange Knowles' creative agency, Saint Heron, at the end of his senior year of high school; the installation is a showcase of black female unity in a non-material, alternative future. His latest short film, "NAIROBI," also made with Saint Heron, about a Harlem-based family of francophone West-African immigrants, will premiere on their platform in the Spring of 2019. Furthermore, Phillip is in post-production on his short documentary about the Grammy-nominated jazz musician Jon Batiste titled, "The Vanguard: Days with Jon Batiste."
The film follows Batiste and the Stay Human Band from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to their six-night run at the legendary Village Vanguard and is set to release late 2019. Youmans founded his production company Denizen Pictures alongside producers Mose Mayer and Ojo Akinlana.
