Louisville, Kentucky, has a new nonprofit film organization with a global vision.
KULLI Atelier Films is officially taking its next step as a nonprofit film organization based in Louisville, Kentucky—created to tell meaningful stories, support filmmakers and artists, preserve culture, and build a bridge connecting Kentucky with Lebanon, the Arab world, and communities around the globe.
For founder and Executive Director Elias Feghaly, this moment represents a dream years in the making.
Born in Lebanon and now rooted in Louisville, Feghaly has spent much of his life working across film, art, and storytelling. KULLI Atelier Films grows from a simple belief: cinema can do more than entertain us. It can preserve memories. It can introduce us to people we have never met. It can challenge assumptions, create empathy, and allow cultures separated by thousands of miles to recognize something familiar in one another.
That idea is at the center of the organization's mission: empowering people through storytelling while uplifting Lebanese, Arabic, and underrepresented voices and creating meaningful cultural connections locally and internationally.
From Louisville to Lebanon—and Lebanon to Louisville
KULLI Atelier Films wants Louisville to become more than the place where we make movies.
We want it to become a meeting place for stories.
Louisville has filmmakers, actors, musicians, photographers, designers, craftspeople, restaurants, hotels, small businesses, beautiful architecture, rural landscapes, and a growing creative community.
Kentucky also offers film-production incentives and expanding production infrastructure. For an independent or international filmmaker accustomed to production costs in cities such as Los Angeles or New York, Kentucky presents another possibility: bring a story here, work with Kentucky talent, utilize local businesses, and put more of the production's resources onto the screen.
Our original organizational vision specifically identified access to Louisville's growing film ecosystem, experienced local crews, and production infrastructure as part of the opportunity we hope to introduce to international collaborators.
But the vision goes beyond attracting productions.
We want those productions to leave something behind.
When a filmmaker comes to Kentucky, that production can potentially hire a local cinematographer. A costume designer. An actor. A makeup artist. A composer. A production assistant. A caterer.
Crews need places to sleep and eat. Productions rent spaces, vehicles and equipment. They purchase supplies. They hire people.
Cinema can become part of a local creative economy.
That is why one of our long-term goals is to introduce more Lebanese and Arab filmmakers, producers, writers, artists and creative companies to Kentucky—not simply as visitors, but as collaborators.
Creating a Home for Lebanese and Arab Stories
Representation matters, but KULLI Atelier Films wants to move beyond simply asking for representation.
We want to help create the infrastructure that allows people to tell their own stories.
There are generations of stories within Lebanese and Arab communities—stories of immigration and diaspora, family and identity, food and music, war and peace, humor, queerness, faith, fashion, love, loss, reinvention and belonging.
Some are enormous historical stories.
Others are beautifully ordinary.
Both deserve a screen.
KULLI Atelier Films hopes to develop programs that connect writers, filmmakers and artists across borders and help transform ideas into work that can be experienced by all audiences.
There are inspiring models for this kind of cultural exchange. Chicago's International Voices Project, for example, champions international playwrights through commissions, translations and productions and collaborates with cultural organizations, universities, consulates and international theaters. Its current programming includes staged readings of contemporary international plays in English translation followed by conversations with artists.
We are inspired by that spirit of exchange—not to duplicate it, but to ask:
What could a Louisville version built around cinema, Lebanon and the Arab diaspora become?
Perhaps it begins with screenplay readings.
Perhaps translated works are introduced to Kentucky actors and audiences.
Perhaps Lebanese writers are paired with Kentucky filmmakers.
Perhaps visiting directors develop films here.
Perhaps emerging Arab-American filmmakers receive mentorship and opportunities to see their first scripts performed.
Perhaps a story that begins on a page in Beirut eventually becomes a film made in Louisville.
That is the ecosystem we want to explore.
Our Next Chapter: Films, Festivals, Education and an Invitation to the World
KULLI Atelier Films isn't beginning with only an idea.
We are beginning with work already created.
Four films now represent the foundation of this next chapter, and our immediate goal is to take these projects into their film-festival run, introducing audiences beyond Kentucky to the filmmakers, performers and artists creating work here in Louisville.
SILLAGE Concept Film Trailer
The festival circuit is not the destination.
It is the introduction.
We want audiences to see what can be created here—and then ask what could be created next.
Meet the KULLI Atelier Films Leadership
Building an organization around cultural exchange requires more than a filmmaker. It requires people who understand education, community, music, partnerships and the power of bringing people into the same room.
Elias Feghaly — Founder & Executive Director
Feghaly leads the organization's mission, creative direction, programming, fundraising and partnerships. As a Lebanese-born filmmaker living and creating in Louisville, his role is also deeply personal: connecting the two places that have shaped his life and creating opportunities for stories and artists to move between them.
Shannon Wooley Allison — Director of Programs & Education
Allison will help guide educational programming, including workshops, screenings, conversations and initiatives designed to make filmmaking and storytelling more accessible to the community.
Pianist Nada — Director of Music & Cultural Programming
Music is inseparable from culture and cinema. Nada's work connects film with live performance, heritage, education and Lebanese and Arabic artistic representation, while helping develop classes, workshops and cultural programming.
Tiffany Ramos Cardwell — Partnerships Community Engagement
Tiffany Ramos Cardwell will focus on building the relationships that allow the mission to live beyond the screen: Tiffany been a part of the Louisville business and nonprofit community since 2000 and brings over 30 years of HR & Business Operations experience
Ivory Mims — Treasurer
Brings more than 40 years of experience as a senior accountant and tax resolution specialist, providing financial oversight and guidance to KULLI Atelier Films.
These roles and responsibilities form the leadership framework developed for the nonprofit.
Why Louisville, Kentucky?
Because we believe Louisville is a little gem with the potential to become something much bigger in film.
Kentucky offers cities and countryside, historic architecture and contemporary spaces, four distinct seasons and landscapes that can stand in for many different worlds.
And perhaps Louisville's greatest resource is not a location at all.
It is its people.
Artists already live here.
Filmmakers already live here.
Actors, photographers, musicians, designers, craftspeople and independent businesses are already creating extraordinary things here.
Our job isn't to pretend that creativity is coming someday.
It is already here.
The opportunity is to connect that existing creative community to more productions, resources, audiences and international relationships.
The Future: A Louisville–Lebanon Film Bridge
The long-term dream for KULLI Atelier Films is ambitious.
We want to build relationships with filmmakers, production companies, universities, cultural institutions, designers, artists and organizations throughout Lebanon and the wider Arab world.
We want to introduce them to Kentucky.
And we want Kentucky to know them.
Imagine a Lebanese director discovering that their next film could be made in Kentucky.
Imagine Kentucky crew members working alongside an international production.
Imagine an Arabic screenplay being translated, read and developed in Louisville.
Imagine Lebanese designers creating costumes for a Kentucky production.
Imagine musicians from opposite sides of the world creating a film score together.
Imagine a young Arab-American filmmaker in Kentucky seeing their culture represented behind the camera as well as in front of it and realizing:
There is a place for my story here.
That is what being a cultural bridge means to us.
It isn't simply importing culture or exporting films.
It is creating relationships in both directions.
Film. Culture. Community. Economic Opportunity.
Our mission is artistic, but its potential impact is also economic.
When we bring productions to Kentucky, we want Kentucky businesses involved. When we hold screenings and cultural programs, we want communities participating. When international artists visit, we want them eating in our restaurants, meeting our designers, collaborating with our filmmakers and discovering the people who make this city special.
And when Louisville audiences experience Lebanese and Arabic cinema, music, fashion, food and storytelling, we hope something else happens:
The world becomes a little smaller.
Because beneath different languages, countries and histories are human beings telling stories about many of the same things.
Family.
Love.
Identity.
Loss.
Dreams.
Home.
An Open Invitation
KULLI Atelier Films is now beginning its next chapter.
Our mission document describes the organization as a “nonprofit film collective & cultural bridge” dedicated to Lebanese, Arabic and underrepresented storytelling, collaboration, mentorship and international connection.
Now we get to turn those words into programs.
We are seeking relationships with filmmakers, writers, actors, producers, musicians, educators, cultural organizations, universities, film festivals, businesses, sponsors, donors and community partners in Louisville, throughout Kentucky, across the United States, in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world.
If you have a screenplay that deserves to be heard, we want to know you.
If you're a filmmaker curious about producing in Kentucky, we want to meet you.
If you're a Louisville business interested in supporting film and cultural programming, there may be a place for you in this story.
If you're an artist searching for collaborators across cultures, come find us.
And if you're simply someone who believes that storytelling can help people understand one another a little better, you're already part of why we're doing this.
From Louisville to Lebanon. From Lebanon to Kentucky. And from our little corner of the world to wherever a great story can travel.
This is only the beginning.
Welcome to KULLI Atelier Films. 🎬🇱🇧🇺🇸
0 comments