Darice Jones

Festival Director

As Bijou Film Festival Co-Founder and Director, Darice Jones/DJ is overjoyed to explore the global Black origins of all the things. This year’s festival is focused on the Black origins of electronic/house/EDM music. Darice teamed up with KweliTV founder, DeShuna Spencer to ensure the festival is hosted on a Black-owned platform. After pouring over 400+ films, Darice and collective found about 40 gems to present to the world.

DJ is an Oakland-native, filmmaker (writer/director), Dream Worker, and professional coach. For DJ, writing, image making, and creative work is always about expanding notions of Black futures while drawing on Black spiritual technologies. Fluidity, agency, interdependence, Black liberation, and unfettered imagination are at the core of DJ’s work in the world.

Jay Kavi

Festival Juror

Jay Kavi is a Bay Area-based, SoCal bred filmmaker (Director/Editor) and Educator.  He began at the forefront of the digital revolution in filmmaking, using readily accessible DV cameras and software based NLE tools to create compelling personal projects. As a proponent of the democratization of film/media, he’s used those tools to introduce DIY/guerrilla storytelling techniques and teach filmmaking to youth of color. 

Jay is currently evolving his post-production work, after earning an additional production certification at at Bay Area Video Coalition during the heart of the pandemic.

Isis Asare

Festival Juror

ghanaian-american | queer | femme | bibliophile | owner of @SistahScifi

Isis Asare is a serial cultural entrepreneur with over a decade of finance and business development experience at Fortune 500 companies such as T-Mobile, Microsoft, Shutterfly, and Amazon. One of her earliest ventures was Sistah Sinema. Asare started Sistah Sinema in her living room and expanded it to 20 cities across the US and internationally, a social/email reach of 10K points of contact, and online presence with Indieflix within five years. She successfully exited Sistah Sinema by selling it to community investors in 2015. 

Asare officially launched Sistah Scifi February 2, 2019 with a celebration of Jewelle Gomez's 25th Anniversary edition of The Gilda Stories. Between 2019 and 2020, Sistah Scifi sales increased tenfold through expanding physical book selection;  launching private label shirts, sweatshirts, and bags; and offering audiobooks and ebooks. Sistah Scifi is on-track to see 10X sales growth again in 2021.

Isis Asare earned her BA in Psychology and African American Studies from Stanford University, Master's In Public Policy from Harvard University, and MBA, International Finance from Columbia Business School.

Chris Maddix aka Maf Festival Juror 2021

Maf is a Berlin artist working with both sound and visuals. His unique music composition THE MOON SUNG ( 6x6 cube from PVC, canvass, and scrim screen, film projection) was exhibited at the CUSP at Snug Harbor. Another exhibition of his performance was showcased at Harvy B. Gantt Museum as part of the Alison Saar Exhibit. In 2020, Maf released his most recent album, HERE AND THEN NOT and YOU HAVE NEVER BELONGED on Bandcamp.

Ari Robey-Lawrence Festival Juror 2021

The Neighbourhood Character (Ari Robey-Lawrence, she/they): self-taught producer, vocalist, and DJ collaborating with artists and performers across the EU and US, and currently active as a DJ in Berlin‘s music scene, playing at range of local events & venues (see CV). She is the co-founder of wood // work collective, an intersectional platform communicating through diverse forms of creative expression conceived with the purpose to create alternative avenues for socio-cultural mobility, professional self-empowerment, and transnational interchange in creative industries. As a live performer has played at Freerotation Audio-Visual Electronic Music festival both as a solo artist, and in her collaboration with Afrikan Sciences as Old Shady Grady & The Neighbourhood Character (OSGATNC), which has released vinyl projects on labels Uzuri (DE) and Off Minor (NL).