TEEN DIRECTOR HAS TIES TO THE AME CHURCH

By Virginia Powell Burchfield, 8^th Episcopal District

            Kalahari Brielle Lewis-Campbell, a native of San Diego, California, has written and directed her first film. Kalahari was accepted to participate in the Black Girls Film Camp (BGFC) after impressing organizers with her vast knowledge of film and her talent as a writer. In late February/early March, she and her mother traveled to Kissimmee, Florida, to participate in the BGFC 2025 Cohort’s Writer’s Boot Camp, before heading to Los Angeles in May to direct and film her short film, “Just As Poetic.” She joined nine other girls of color from across the United States, some of whom, like Kalahari, were as young as 15.

             Immersed in family lore and history by her parents, Courtney Burten Lewis, her mother, was born in Mississippi, and her father, Rashad Lewis-Campbell, is a second-generation Jamaican American. Kalahari’s family experiences shaped her desire to pursue a career in the film industry. Kalahari’s paternal grandmother, Anita Burten, is a member of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, Mississippi, and continues to share legends and history with her granddaughter about the Mississippi Delta. Growing up in a multi-cultural community, Kalahari learned to speak and write Spanish as her first language. The diversity of her community, which included Latino and Filipino influences, is readily apparent in her essays and now in her short film.

            With the entire family in tow, including Grandmother Anita, Kalahari traveled to Los Angeles, where she filmed and directed her first short film. The film will be shown in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 21 at the Black Girls Film Camp Fest.

            Kalahari is grateful to have been accepted into the film camp and to be part of an immersive event.  Her hope is that her short film, “Just As Poetic,” will empower the next generation of Black girls to see themselves as the main characters and as storytellers. Kalahari said, “Representation is everything!”

The Reverend Virginia Powell Burchfield is the Pastor of St. James AME Church, Charleston, Mississippi.