Shahari Moore is the Historian Emeritus for the Guy Hanks and Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Chicago State University, where she was first identified as a multi-genre writer. After completing her MFA, the Hurston Wright Foundation extended a scholarship to attend their Writer’s Workshop in DC, where she fell in love with screenwriting!

 

Shahari is the Writer and Co-Director of B Love and Swimmin’ Lesson. In 2017, she made her solo directorial debut with Brooks People, a short documentary on Gwendolyn Brooks. Brooks People was a finalist for Best Short Documentary at the BronzeLens Film Festival in 2018 and the Pan African Film Festival in 2017.  All of her work has been featured at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, where she was recently commissioned to write and direct, “Chicago Guy”, which will open the Black Harvest Film Festival in 2019. Shahari has garnered numerous accolades locally, nationally, and internationally; including the Diversity in Cannes-Top 10 Black Filmmakers in 2019, 1st place in the AT&T 48 Hour Film Challenge in 2018, Best Black Director by The Black Mall in 2018, and the Hollywood On State-Star Filmmaker Award in 2016.

 

Shahari has also successfully secured distribution for her films. She is a member of the inaugural class of the Diverse Voices in DOCS fellowship, an initiative of Kartemquin Films and the Community Film Workshop, where she now serves as a mentor to emerging filmmakers. In 2017, she participated in Sankofa City Summer School, a multimedia project in preparation for the Obama Library through the University of Chicago. For over twenty years she has served as a professor with the City Colleges of Chicago, teaching courses in Africana Studies and African American Literature. For the past three years she’s taught teens through the Allstate Youth Filmmakers Initiative.

 

In 2017, she was selected as the inaugural teaching artist in screenwriting by the Chicago Writers Studio. She later launched a writing workshop in cooperation with the Rebuild Foundations’, Black Cinema House at the Stony Island Arts Bank. In 2018, she was selected as the showrunner for the “Behind the Field” web series, a project funded by Chance the Rapper’s Social Works Foundation. Shahari was raised on Chicago’s south side in Bronzeville.

 

Today, she continues to live, teach and create art in the community where she was raised. She is currently looking to expand, Brooks People into a feature length documentary, titled, Cool: On Gwendolyn Brooks. Shahari is a member of IFP Chicago, Creative Cypher, Reel Black Filmmakers, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and Film Independent. 

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