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Kyle Skyes
As a fellow of the Deutsche Bank Frieze LA Film Award, he was highlighted online and in the Frieze Art Fair and magazine as one of ten distinguished minority film makers telling diverse stories in Los Angeles. The short film he made last year with this fellowship, Nomadic, was screened on a panel at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival. It was also official selection at the Micheaux Film Festival and the Toronto Short Film Festival. For the 2022 fall season, he was the Director of Photography for The Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable series on actors, actresses, directors, and producers. The year prior, he did a sports documentary about basketball and gentrification in Portland, Jumptown, which is currently being distributed on Roku. In 2024, he was one of eight international scholars sent to China to create a documentary with the top journalism program. He was also one of eight diversity scholars selected to teach film to undergraduates at USC. This summer, his recent short film Negro League Nights won the Sports category at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival, as well as at Martha’s Vineyard International and the Micheaux Film Festival. On the technology side, I’ve been an early hire at multiple venture-backed startups, including serving as the first hire at Scale API during its formative growth stage. I’ve held marketing and community leadership roles across organizations ranging from crypto exchanges to Airbnb, working directly with founders and cross-functional teams to drive growth, customer acquisition, and ecosystem engagement. Through this work, I’ve gained firsthand exposure to the financial, operational, and risk considerations founders face as they scale from idea to institutional readiness. Across all of his work, he aims to create stories that are culturally rooted, emotionally honest, and visually powerful narratives that merge heritage with modern storytelling, shooting in real spaces that carry history and weight. With every script, film, and photo, he tries to select topics that further glorify his cultural values: standing up for your community, being a trailblazer in new rooms, and celebrating where you come from. To fulfill a sense of Duty. Of pride. Of legacy
