Milana Edwards Brooks - Open Pitch Session

Milana Edwards Brooks was born and raised in southeast San Diego. As a first-generation college graduate, Milana places a lot of personal emphasis on equality in education. While pursuing her BA in English from Georgetown University, Milana worked with education activist organizations which led her to join the Teach For America (TFA), Washington DC corps where she taught at-risk students. She transitioned into the film industry in 2017 when she was accepted in the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC ('19) and produced her first short film Hoop Dreamin’ which was accepted into multiple film festivals including Pan African Film Festival and the Forbes Thirty Under 30 festival and secured airline distribution. In the last 3 years, Milana has produced 5 short films.Her most recent project NATIVES was recently accepted into the San Francisco Black Film Festival and the Official Latino FIlm and Arts Festival. She is a 2020 Film Independent Producing Lab fellow and is in development on her first feature film.

As a writer and producer, she seeks to create content for and by women of color. Her long-term aspiration is to own a production company dedicated to traditional and new-media that provides storytellers with a platform to tell their own authentic truths. Milana is a recipient of Frank Volpe Endowed Scholarship, the Stark Special Production Grant and is a T. Howard Alumni.