kA'RAMUU kUSH is a native Detroiter — born on the eastside, raised on the westside. He attended Detroit public schools his entire life before dropping out of Cooley High School.
After dropping out, his creative ambitions led him to New York, then Los Angeles, before returning to New York to head the Acting for Film and Media BFA at Pace University — the first undergraduate program in the US dedicated entirely to training actors for filmed performance.
He earned his MFA in Filmmaking at AFI Conservatory, graduating with the cohort ranked #1 film school in the world by The Hollywood Reporter. His award-winning work has screened at Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, ABFF, and beyond — with broadcast credits on CBS, BET, HBO, and Cinemax.
"My name is kA'RAMUU kUSH and Film Skoolie is my ikigai. I teach young people how to see the world through two sets of eyes — the eyes in their heads and the eyes in their minds."
A native Detroiter graduating from high school dropout to college professor, kUSH is an internationally recognized scholar, filmmaker, and theatre artist touted by Sidney Poitier, John Singleton, and Woodie King Jr. as one of the most crafted filmmakers of his generation.
He earned his MFA in Filmmaking at AFI Conservatory — graduating with the cohort ranked #1 film school in the world by The Hollywood Reporter — and his MFA in Theatre Direction from Brooklyn College, CUNY. His award-winning work has screened at Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, ABFF, and beyond, with broadcast credits on CBS, BET, HBO, and Cinemax.
Prior to his university appointments, kUSH served as Founding Associate Director of the Junior Scholars Program at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem — designing Arts in Education programming and hiring Teaching Artists, among them Chadwick Boseman.
He subsequently served as Associate Director of LA Bridges, an after-school gang prevention program at Audubon Middle School in South Central Los Angeles, implementing Arts in Education curriculum for a student population that was 50% foster care youth.
kUSH currently serves as Associate Professor and Industry Liaison in the Acting for Film and Media BFA program at Pace University's Sands College of Performing Arts — the first undergraduate program in the US dedicated entirely to training actors for filmed performance.
He has served as a mentor on President Obama's United We Serve initiative, a Sundance Collab Advisor, and a Pan African Film Festival Filmmaker-in-Residence. He is a Jefferson Award Bronze Medalist and a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S).
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