Meet our grantee:

BoomGen Studios (2017 Grant)

Mahyad Tousi and Reza Aslan co-founded BoomGen Studios to combat the stereotypical, racist, and outright offensive caricatures of their culture and community in popular media.  A decade later, BoomGen has emerged as the premier entertainment brand and incubator for stories by and about the peoples and cultures of the Middle East, Central/South Asia, and North Africa aimed at the global entertainment markets.

Storytellers enrich us with tales of love, resilience, and transcendence, bearing witness to the universality of the human condition. Yet when the most prominent chroniclers of such stories are white men, it is not surprising that our view of the world lacks sufficient nuance to usher in a more equitable and just society. – Mahyad Tousi

While the cultural focus of our company is specific, the lessons we have learned and the strategies we have developed over the last decade apply to other minority storytellers who also aspire to have far-reaching, long-lasting impact on society. -Reza Aslan

BoomGen will engage in the research and design of a “Pop Culture Content Incubator,” an accelerator for the next generation of content creators of color, immigrants, and Muslims in Hollywood to have both the power to create pop culture storytelling that can transform society and the skills for career longevity within the entertainment industry.  

Visit BoomGen’s website.