The Commercial Directors Diversity Program (CDDP) has announced five new Fellows for 2019: Sofia Garza-Barba, Vanessa Black, Christopher Cegielski, Dominique DeLeon and Jane Qian.
Created by the AICP and the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the CDDP reflects the commitment of both organizations to increase representation of women and other under-represented groups in the commercial directing ranks. CDDP does this through a targeted program of outreach, mentorship and exposure. The program–which will last six months–works to pair unsigned directors with AICP member production companies. In addition to providing a grant for each Fellow to create a spec commercial, the program features an industry showcase of the directors’ work, workshops specific to the intricacies of the ad world, mentoring and shadowing with commercial production companies, networking and more.
Out of over 300 applicants, this year’s Fellows were selected from among finalists, who are: Aemilia Scott, Brian L Tan (“BLT”), Camilla Hall, Dina Mande, Elizabeth Lippman, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Erin Brown Thoms, Husein Alicajic, Jen McGowan, Jose Ho-Guanipa, Krysten Resnick, Lee Davis, LeRon Lee, Liv Colliander, Maya Washington, Michael McGhie, Mitchel Dumlao, Patrick “Praheme” Ricks, Pedro Bermudez, Princess Monique, Reynier Molenaar, Ryan Brown, Sharon Everitt, Sherwin Shilati, Stacey Muhammad, Suha Araj, Tamer Shaaban and Tiffany Frances Huang.
Tamika Lamison is the CDDP director. Last year the program launched six Fellows: Maya Albanese, Erica Eng, Kryzz Gautier, Monty Marsh, Tamika Miller and Gabrielle Paciorek. Marsh has chosen to remain freelance while the other five signed with commercial production companies. Eng is on the Tomorrow roster. Paciorek is with Untitled. Miller and Gautier signed with Above and Beyond shortly after completing the program. And Albanese joined brother during the program.
