Maori Karmael Holmes is an American filmmaker, curator, cultural worker, and the chief executive and artistic officer of BlackStar Projects,[3] which produces the annual BlackStar Film Festival.
[4] Holmes is the director of the 2005 feature documentary Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip-Hop.
[5] She has curated several group shows and exhibitions,[6] including, Terence Nance: Swarm, which opened in March 2023 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.
[7] Holmes hosts the podcast Many Lumens,[8] and her writing has appeared in Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance, and Collective Wisdom: Co-Creating Media Within Communities Across Disciplines and Algorithms.
In 2023, Holmes received United States Artists' Berresford Prize[9] and in 2022 received an inaugural Philadelphia's Cultural Treasures Fellowship.