Toni Achebe Bell

rebsl — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:50:10 +0000

Toni Achebe Bell is the founder of Black Cat Impact Media and the creator and host of the What's Up with Docs Podcast. She was the Impact Producer for The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales by Abigail Disney, Fruits of Labor, and the award-winning A Woman on the Outside. She teaches media and impact at Saybrook University. She has worked as an Impact Strategist for Odyssey Impact Partners, Looky Looky Pictures, & Auburn Seminary’s Hartley Media Impact Initiative.
Toni spearheaded the impact campaign for RePresent Media’s initiative, The Power of Personal Documentary Films, and previously served on the advisory board of the Southeast European Film Festival. She has worked as a facilitator and mentor for Doc Society’s Good Pitch Local. A sought-after industry expert, Toni has been a speaker, panelist, mentor, and juror at leading documentary film festivals and labs, including NALIP, Dok Leipzig, HotDocs, IFP Week, Berlinale’s European Film Market, Outfest, Docs by the Sea, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and Korea Next Media.
Toni has also contributed her expertise as a grant reviewer for Firelight Media’s William Greaves Fund and Impact Funds, California Humanities, the Jerome Foundation, and numerous other funding organizations. She was part of the inaugural cohort of Art Equity's BIPOC Leadership Circle and formerly served as the Filmmaker Services Manager at the International Documentary Association (IDA).
Toni holds a MAT-TESOL and an MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Southern California (USC), an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University, and a certificate in Professional Screenwriting from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology and Social Change at the California Institute for Integral Studies

Keywords: Mental health, Afromexicanas, identity formation

Afromexicanas | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Toni Achebe Bell