Ramaa Mosley

Ramaa Mosley
Born	Ramaa Devi Mosley 1978 New Orleans, Louisiana
Residence	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education	Laurel Springs School
Alma mater	Bennington
Occupation	American commercial, music video and feature film director, and screenwriter.
Notable work	The Brass Teapot (director) Grace (director) Girl Rising (producer, Afgan section)
Spouse(s)	Cameron Gray 2004

Ramaa Devi Mosley is an American commercial, music video and feature and documentary film director based in Los Angeles. She is also an activist, known for raising national and international awareness of the victims of the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in Nigeria by using social media to raise awareness. In an interview Mosley conducted with CNN on May 7, 2014 to discuss the abduction of the Nigerian girls, Mosley raised national consciousness on the issue of the Nigerian kidnappings.^[1] In a short pre-recorded interview with ABC News, Mosley also had the chance to raise awareness about the kidnappings, and how social media has helped to galvanize a movement for justice.^[2]

Life and career

Mosley was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mosley is the daughter of Marilyn Mosley-Gordanier and Rick Mosley and has two brothers, Raphael and Michael. Mosley was born on an Ashram and grew up in Ojai, California, where she attended Laurel Springs school. She has two children.

Mosley has directed two documentaries, We Can Make A Difference and Two Seasons and Home. Mosley has written and directed two short films, The Brass Teapot and Grace. She is considered to be one of the most successful female commercial directors in the industry and, to date, Mosley has won best director at the First Glance Film Festival for her short film Grace. In 2011, she won the Audience Choice Award at Dance Camera West for her short film In Dreams I Run Wild. Mosley has directed the feature film The Brass Teapot and produced the Afghanistan segment of 10x10's feature film Girl Rising.^[3]

Commercials

At the age of 16, Mosley began directing music videos. At the age of 21 years, Mosley was directing music videos and then award winning national and international commercials for clients such as Adidas, ESPNW, and Powerade. Most recently Mosley has directed commercials for ESPN, Levi’s, and Nike. In February 2015, Mosley completed commercial campaigns for South West Airlines, Fuji Instax and Levi's. She is currently signed to Splendid and Co.

Adolescent Content

In February 2014, Mosley launched Adolescent Content. Adolescent is a production company which represents young prodigious directors ages 11 to 26 years old for work directing commercials, branded contented, web series, television, and films. Their young directors have recently completed campaigns for Beats Music Apps, Diesel, ESPN, American Girl, Vice, Tom's Shoes, Disney, and Skype. They help brands utilize the powerful voices of young people to speak to the youth demographic that they are targeting.^[4]

Adolescent Content represents prodigious teen and young millennial directors, photographers and social media influencers (as young as 11 years old). She has given a Ted Talk about the advantages of being a teen director called "The Power of Adolescent Directors".^[5]

Adolescent has launched AdolescentTV on YouTube, a network focused on the creation and distribution of high-quality entertaining content created by youth for youth. This platform has four scripted serialized web series created by Adolescent directors that range in genre from comedy to action/thriller.

On September 16, 2016, Adolescent Content launched their digital platform www.adolescent.net.

Feature Films

The Brass Teapot

Mosley's first feature film, was based on the comic book series that Mosley and Tim Macy co-wrote.^[3]

The Brass Teapot starring Juno Temple and Michael Angarano was shot for a budget of 850k over 21 days in the summer of 2012.^[6] The movie premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film festival where it was warmly received. New York-based distribution company Magnolia Picture inked a deal for The Brass Teapot, which Mosley shot in Upstate New York. The film was released on April 5, 2013.

In Movie Nation, critic Roger Moore says of The Brass Teapot, "Equal parts dark and comically disturbing, "The Brass Teapot" is a fantasy parable for our times, a film that literally equates pain with greed." In Variety, chief international Film Critic Peter Debruge called the movie "a fresh riff on 'be careful what you wish for; fables". Film Journal said of it "Few farces have started out with such an outlandish premise, but director Ramaa Mosley has complete conviction in it that, along with the engaging lead performances, keep the comedy percolating." and of Mosley's directing of the actor's, Hollywood Reporter critic Frank Schenk says, "The two leads deliver highly appealing performances, with the comely Temple showing no reluctance to frequently doff most of her clothing and Angarano displaying an offbeat comic sensibility."

Paste Magazine's film critic, Leland Montgomery says of Mosley, "Though The Brass Teapot is Ramaa Mosley’s first feature, it feels as if it’s steered by a much more experienced hand. The story is set up and unfolds in a very subtle, nuanced manner that enriches each reveal. Though the story is sweet, Mosley mostly avoids sentimentalism and keeps the plot grounded, despite the supernatural elements." Debruge of Variety said of Mosley " Despite the inherent perversity of the concept, Mosley succeeds in maintaining a certain sweetness throughout. Even more impressively, she makes her low-budget enterprise look as slick as most midrange studio comedies, demonstrating herself a director with both imagination and technical ingenuity. If she wishes to work again, The Brass Teapot is likely to make it so." ^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

Tatterdemalion

Mosley finished post-production on her second feature film the dramatic thriller Tatterdemalion, which was shot in the Ozarks starring Leven Rambin, Taylor John Smith and Jim Parrack.^[12] The film is currently being submitted to film festivals. The film was written by Mosley and Tim Macy.^[13]

Tatterdemalion is a dramatic thriller about an army veteran (Fern) who returns home to the Ozarks to look for her brother (Billy) and finds an abandoned boy in the woods. As she searches for answers about who the child is she discovers a mysterious world of folk lore, clan rules and lies.

The film was produced by Gina Resnick along with Tim Macy, Ramaa Mosley and Paul Cameron Gray. The film was financed by Green Hummingbird Pictures.

Nelson

In January 2015, it was reported that Mosley is attached to direct the supernatural thriller Nelson aka Hypergraphia which started to shoot in the Fall of 2015. The script is based on an original idea that Mosley and Tim Macy developed five years prior to their collaboration on The Brass Teapot. Robert Stein and Mark Amin (Sobini Films) optioned the material in 2014 to produce.

In this character-driven thriller, Nelson, an ex-con and blue collar worker, estranged from his beloved wife and son, is gripped by terror after he wakes up from a car accident and discovers pages of a hand-typed manuscript scattered about his apartment. Nelson becomes obsessed with the appearance of the pages which tell the haunting story of a child kidnapped and murdered over thirty years ago. Nelson, hoping to win back his family, daringly publishes the manuscript under his own name and achieves unlikely literary stardom. But it turns out the manuscript is far from fiction: it is identical to the decades-old kidnapping of a boy named Tommy Brannigan. Now, Nelson’s only hope of protecting his family is to discover if Tommy's spirit wrote the manuscript and find Tommy’s killer.

Sometimes Thieves

In February 2015, it was reported that Mosley is attached to direct Sometimes Thieves, a crime romance movie, written by Ryan Cannon, which she developed with producers Dallas Brennan and Jeff Elliot. The movie was set to begin principal photography in July 2015. The focuses on the character of Peter Bateman, a bookbinder by day and hobbyist grifter by night. He is the smallest of small-time thieves. When the woman of his dreams falls in love with his criminal persona, he must either pull off his first big heist or reveal himself a fraud.

Other projects

In April 2015, it was reported that Mosley is in development on the supernatural love story The Reason, which she wrote to direct under her production company banner, Laundry Films, Inc.

Mosley co-wrote The Mommy Group with Jamie Pachino. The feature script is currently in development with Laundry Films set to produce and Mosley to direct. The premise of this film finds a group of new moms that find their diverse lives intersecting so they form a 'Mommy Group' to help them survive the war zone of motherhood.

Girl Rising

In 2013, Mosley directed the Afghan segment of the documentary Girl Rising which follows the harrowing stories of girls around the world struggling to get an education. Girl Rising "is a global campaign for girls’ education," which uses "the power of storytelling to share the simple truth that educating girls can transform societies. Girl Rising unites girls, women, boys and men who believe every girl has the right to go to school and the right to reach her full potential."^[14]

Mosley is one of five directors who were asked by 10x10 Documentary Group to direct a segment of the documentary and, though she is not part of the Girl Rising organization, she has spoken out repeatedly in the news about the importance of educating girls and remains a supporter of the cause.^[15]

Music videos

Mosley has directed over a dozen music videos since she began directing in 1998 for artists including Fizzy Bangers, Jil Sobule, Kristen Berry, B-52's ("Debbie"), Creed, Brendon Benson, and Five For Fighting's "Superman."

#BringBackOurGirls campaign

In the wake of the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in Nigeria, Mosley gained national recognition for raising awareness about the atrocity. Utilizing social media to support the Bring Back Our Girls movement in Abuja, Nigeria. Mosley re-tweeted #BringBackOurGirls, which became a prominent part of the hashtag activism surrounding the incident.^[16] In an interview with ABC News Mosley said that upon hearing of the kidnapping she wept, and originally planned to travel to Chibok to cover the story, but later decided to campaign on social media instead because of her young children.^[16] The subsequent ABC News story was originally titled "Los Angeles Mother of Two Creates Viral Hashtag", but was later updated when Mosley wrote the Producers to complain with a note reflecting the fact that Mosley was not the first to tweet the hashtag.^[17]

The hashtag had been started by Nigerian Ibrahim M. Abdullahi, echoing a phrase said by the former vice president of the World Bank, Oby Ezekwesili in a speech.^[16] Originally retweeted 95 times, including by Ezekwesili who has 125,000 followers on Twitter.^[17] Mosley began tweeting the hashtag to her friends, and then the President of the United States, Barack Obama.^[16] Mosely described the hashtag as an "SOS to the world".^[16] A Facebook page about the kidnapping started by Mosley had more than 43,000 likes by early May and 230,000 by July.^[16] Mosely said the incident had "...consumed my life and I believe it will until the girls are rescued." Mosley organized and attended five protest rallies in Los Angeles, drawing hundreds of people who collectively chanted the slogan.^[16] The Guardian's story on the kidnapping was tweeted more than 3,500 times on April 23 and but received its largest boost from the performer Chris Brown.^[17] The majority of prominent uses of the hashtag was by accounts related to the news network CNN.^[17] Subsequently, Mosley co-organized a Mother's Day vigil. On May 22, Mosley also held a global school girl march, in which thousands of school girls in cities around the world marched to raise awareness about the Chibok girl's plight.

Honors

• 2015 Los Angeles Business Journal Women Making A Difference Nominee
• 2015 Dance Camera West Audience Choice Award In May 2015, Mosley won for her film Attention, featuring the Heart Beat Academy band composed of youth from homeless and foster care backgrounds.
• Best Director First Glance Film Festival Grace
• Nominated, International Critics' Award (2013) for The Brass Teapot
• Nominated, Discovery Award for The Brass Teapot (2013).
• The Saturn Award and the Critic's Award
• Nominated, Toronto International Film Festival's Discovery Award 2013
• Dance Camera West audience Choice award ^[18]
• Global 500 UNEP award "We Can Make A Difference" ^[19]

References