Reimagining Story

Windmill Films was created by Rashaad Newsome and Johnny Symons to make ambitious, formally inventive work that pushes storytelling beyond conventional boundaries. Drawing on filmmaking, visual art, performance, music, technology, and documentary storytelling, Windmill moves fluidly across genres and artistic disciplines to create work that is visually bold, emotionally resonant, and difficult to categorize. At its core is a belief in the power of creative experimentation to reimagine whose stories are told, how they are told, and what new worlds they can make possible—with a particular commitment to expansive Black and queer narratives.

Together, Newsome and Symons bring more than three decades of storytelling experience and dozens of honors, including Academy Award, Emmy, Sundance and SXSW nominations, a Creative Capital Award, and the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica.

Rashaad Newsome is an award-winning filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, and innovator whose work defies conventional boundaries, blending film, performance, technology, and community organizing. Through his visionary approach, he crafts immersive experiences that challenge outdated narratives and create new spaces for Black, queer stories to thrive. Rashaad’s previous works include critically acclaimed projects that merge animation, sculpture, music, and artificial intelligence. His films reflect a philosophy of collage—both in form and content—deconstructing and reimagining the world through expansive, inclusive lenses. A recipient of an honorary doctoral degree in Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut, Newsome has exhibited and performed in galleries, museums, institutions, and festivals throughout the world, including Hayward Gallery (London), The Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), The Sundance Film Festival, and The National Museum of African American History and Culture (DC). He has created more than 15 short films that have screened in arts institutions, festivals, and on PBS. Recent awards for his work include a 2025 Creative Capital Award, the 2022 NEWFEST Emerging Black LGBTQ+ Filmmaker Award and the 2022 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica Award For Computer Animation.

Johnny Symons is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker who has directed and produced multiple award-winning LGBTQ-themed feature documentaries. His films include Daddy & Papa, which premiered at Sundance, broadcast in more than a dozen countries and garnered 12 festival awards, Out Run, which premiered at full frame and aired on public television, and Ask Not, which broadcast nationally on PBS and screened at the US Capitol. He is co-producer of the Academy Award-nominated Long Night’s Journey Into Day, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and streamed on Showtime, and executive producer of Pray Away, which premiered at Tribeca and is streaming on Netflix. Johnny is a documentary branch member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), a former fellow in the Sundance Institute’s documentary film program and former co-chair of New Day Films. His work has screened at more than 300 international film festivals and received support from funders such as Sundance, Tribeca, ITVS, Catapult, HBO, Frameline, and the California Council for the Humanities. He graduated with honors from Brown University and has a master’s in Documentary Production from Stanford. He is a professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University.