Phill Branch

Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award and a 2019 Rubys Artist Award grantee. The grant will support the completion of his one-person show, Rolling Stops. The show examines examines living outside the prescribed definitions of blackness and masculinity.

An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on our lives. The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival.

Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and at Howard University. He is currently at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media.