Ashley O'Shay

Ashley O’Shay is a director-DP whose work illuminates marginalized voices, bearing witness to communities in their full light. Most recently, her cinematography appeared in WITNESSING, a co-production of Yale’s Leith Lab and LM Film Collective.

Her debut feature, UNAPOLOGETIC (POV 2021), captures two fierce abolitionists whose upbringing and experiences shape their Black liberatory activism. Ashley also directed IN DUE SEASON (WETA+), a short documentary illuminating the issue of Medicaid expansion and its disproportionate effect on Black Americans.

Currently, Ashley is at the helm of SOUTHMONT DRIVE, a collective memory piece about her family from Alabama, as they contemplate place, space, and the bonds that keep us.

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ABOUT SOUTHMONT DRIVE

This documentary reflects on the legacy of a Black family from Tuskegee, Alabama, centered on filmmaker Ashley O’Shay’s late grandfather, Melvin Lewis. Having lost their patriarch’s home, the film weaves together memories of his living descendants, examining a Black family’s plight in the small town South and determination to remain connected.

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