Tambay Obenson

Tambay Obenson is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker. A serial entrepreneur, he launched and operated several small businesses over the last 2 decades, including independent film distribution company Voyager Film Company Inc, founded in 2005, in response to the then lack of distribution and awareness for indie films by and about people of African descent. In accordance with his steadfast belief in collective power, in 2009, Tambay teamed up with other black cinema bloggers to create a single web portal for cinema of Africa and its diaspora. The new site, called Shadow and Act (taken from Ralph Ellison's 1964 book of essays of the same name), enjoyed immediate success, growing rapidly to become the primary destination for all things black cinema on the web, worldwide. As the chief editor and writer of Shadow and Act, Tambay was often invited to speak on topics related to black cinema, moderate panel discussions, host filmmaker conversations, and judge filmmaker talent at film festivals, as well as colleges and universities around the world. He also co-founded the joint venture Shadow and Act Films LLC, in 2010, a film financing and production initiative which focused on backing artistically-inspired, culturally relevant films by black filmmakers, via an annual competition that provided production funds to filmmakers with winning screenplays. After running Shadow and Act solo for 8 years, in early 2017, Tambay sold the popular blog to Los Angeles-based Blavity, Inc - a young, black-owned multi-faceted media company. Tambay is also co-founder and co-curator of the 8-year-old renowned New Voices in Black Cinema Festival, which takes place annually at BAMCinematek in Brooklyn, NY.