We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kadé Hill. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kadé below.

Kadé, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I’m currently working on a new series called White Rose. It’s a spinoff to the 2019 short film White Rose which highlights and brings awareness to child sex trafficking in the US. This is by far the most meaningful project that I’ve had the pleasure of working on because the film made such an impact to our audience and has gone on to win so many awards both nationally and internationally.

This is also the project that got me back into the film industry. At the time, I was working as a design engineer for a telecommunications company in Atlanta. Toni, a mutual friend/coworker, introduced me to John Estrada. She said “You should meet John, he sits right over there and he wrote a stage play. You both are kindred spirits”. John wrote White Rose the stage play and without any other context, he walked over, placed the script on my desk and said tell me what you think.

I then emailed him a script that I wrote a few years prior but again, I wasn’t actively filmmaking at the time so I wasn’t expecting immediate feedback. About an hour later, John walks back over and says “this script is amazing, I couldn’t put it down.” He read the entire movie script before I had a chance to glance at his script. At that point, I felt bad and decided to devout some time each day to reading the play. I started reading and also could not put it down. I remember handing it back to him that same day, telling him how much I enjoyed it and thinking that I wish I would have thought of such an impactful story. That was it, I moved on to another job a few weeks later and didn’t think about it again.

Fast forward 3 years, I received a random call from my ex-coworker, John. He asked if I remembered him and if I’d be interested in turning his stage play into a movie script and collaborating on the production. I initially said no until he told me that he prayed about it and asked if I would do the same before declining. Long story short, God also confirmed that I should be apart of this journey and here we are a new series and several awards later. Throughout this journey, so many people have reached out to tell us their stories of abuse and we’re using this film and platform to give them their voices back.

Kadé, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a wife, mom, writer, director, producer, design engineer and the founder of Jaido Studios. I have over a decade of experience in the design, fashion and film industries. I wanted to develop a space that represents all people of color in a new light. My goal is to create captivating stories that break common barriers and reinvents the way that we are represented in today’s media.

In my early 20s I signed to an agency and got my start modeling. That opened the door to acting but I noticed that all of the roles seems so stereotypical. I’m a firm believer that representation matters and movies can be so much more than just entertainment. The studio is the product of all of my passions and experiences merged into one and I’m most proud of all of the impactful stories that we’ve created thus far.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

As important as a social media presence is, it can also be damaging to a creative. The most important thing to understand is that you are constantly seeing the highlights of people’s lives. Some of those highlights are illusions and some showcase the moment that the person has worked years to reach. Don’t spend your time trying to copy the people that you are following.

When I stopped worrying about keeping up with the people I followed and focused on my passion, my drive, my brand and my audience, my followers grew organically. Understand that real is so rare, build your audience by being authentic to you and your brand. You will gain the right following if you give them the real you. It doesn’t all need to be a flex – tell a story, give advice, hot takes, opinions and you’ll be surprised at how many gravitate to you. In an overly saturated industry, real is a breath of fresh air.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I was late to the film festival party. If you are a filmmaker, I highly recommend placing your short film, feature film, music video, script etc. into film festivals. There is a fee to submit but it gets your work in front of industry professionals faster and can open so many doors of opportunity. I personally use filmfreeway.com and have yet to have a bad experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.myjaido.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/iamkadehill
• Other: www.instagram.com/jaidostudios