ABOUT

Zaire Love [azairelovejunt] is an award-winning filmmaker, music maker, writer, and educator whose mission is to honor, amplify, and immortalize the stories and voices of the Black South focusing most of her work in Memphis, TN, and Mississippi. While Zaire’s work extends beyond the Black South, bringing honor to it, its people, its traditions, and its cultures in the past, present, and future is her life’s work.

Zaire has been awarded honors at multiple film festivals, made history by being the first filmmaker to ever win Best Hometowner Documentary Short and Best Hometowner Narrative Short at the Indie Memphis in the same year [2023], created work for PBS, and granted the If/Then and HULU grant to produce her award-winning short documentary, SLICE, which is now a The New Yorker Documentary. Her work has also been featured on STARZ and Raedio.  

 Zaire Love is a graduate of Spelman College [BA], Houston Baptist University [M. Ed], and the University of Mississippi [MFA]. She directs the Southern Foodways Alliance film program and is the Creative Director at Scalawag Magazine. She is writing new narrative scripts and exploring new documentary ideas with her studio, Creative Cornbread.

in the skillet...

THE BIG WE SHE STORIES STORYTELLING GRANT | 2023

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY | OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL 2023

PBS | WYNCOTE FOUNDATION FELLOW | 2022

OURAY FILM FESTIVAL | FILM IN ACTION HONOREE | 2022

IF/THEN X HULU FOR SLICE DOCUMENTARY | 2021

THE CATALYST COHORT | MADE IN HER IMAGE | 2021

NPN’S SOUTHERN ARTIST FOR SOCIAL CHANGE RECIPIENT | 2021 

INDIE MEMPHIS | BLACK SCREENWRITER FELLOW | 2020

SOUTHERN DOCUMENTARY FUND | RESEARCH + DEVELOPMENT GRANT 2020

WALTER ANDERSON CURATORIAL FELLOW  2020

CROSSTOWN ARTS RESIDENCY | MEMPHIS, TN | FEBRUARY- MAY 2020  

MAGNIFYING GLASS FELLOWSHIP OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL | DECEMBER 2019  

SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE FILM INTERNSHIP | JUNE 2019 

GRADUATE SUMMER FELLOWSHIP | JUNE 2019 

RURAL PROJECT GRANT | INDIE GRITS | DECEMBER 2018 

BLACK CREATORS FELLOWSHIP | INDIE MEMPHIS NOVEMBER 2018 

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