In this week’s episode of the Black Girl Nerds podcast, we chat with the filmmakers behind the movie Kingston which premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival. At the prestigious Kingston College, paths collide between a first generation student, the son of a billionaire, a noncommittal situationship, and a Chinese professor. The semester will shake the identity of each, and of the university itself.
Carlos Key (Writer-Director) is a 24-year-old filmmaker based in New York. Spending early childhood in China and Chile, he gained an early fascination with languages and cross-cultural narratives. He continued to develop this passion through filmmaking in the following years, and pursued East Asian Studies with a focus on Chinese at Columbia University.
Carlos and his now long-term creative partner Kalijah Rowe met in their Seattle high school film
club. Over the past eight years the duo have collaborated on over a dozen short films, with
multiple screened at festivals including SIFF and NFFTY. Their most recent projects were the
short film MARRIED TO THE GAME and the featurette MEMORIES OF MEAT, where they
honed their directorial style in a longer runtime format. Now, the best-friends-turned-co-directors
have completed their first feature-length film KINGSTON, where they seek to capture the trials,
tribulations, and general absurdity of their generation’s college experience.
Kalijah Rowe (Writer-Director)
Kalijah Rowe is a 24-year-old filmmaker currently based in New York. After feeling limited at his
film school in Seattle, he left to develop his style on his own terms. Producing numerous
experimental shorts and music videos independently, he consistently found himself drawn to
imagery with a surrealist texture as a tool for expressing what words could not.
Kalijah and his now long-term creative partner Carlos Key met in their Seattle high school film
club. Over the past eight years the duo have collaborated on over a dozen short films, with
multiple screened at festivals including SIFF and NFFTY. Their most recent projects were the
short film MARRIED TO THE GAME and the featurette MEMORIES OF MEAT, where they
combined their individual strengths into a style that is both introspective but also kinetic. Now,
the best-friends-turned-co-directors have completed their first feature-length film KINGSTON,
where they seek to capture the trials, tribulations, and general absurdity of their generation’s
college experience.
Jenna Shen (Writer-Producer)
Jenna Shen is a Beijing-born filmmaker currently based in New York. She is a rising senior at
Columbia University double majoring in English and Film. Her approach to filmmaking blends
academic inquiry with socio-cultural awareness, with a particular focus in low budget
independent, international, and arthouse cinema.
EVERYTHING YOU DON’T KNOW, the first short film she co-wrote, directed, and edited in high
school, has been viewed more than 40K times online and continues to spark conversations
around public education in China. In New York, she has been involved in numerous thesis
projects from schools such as SVA, NYU Tisch, and Columbia School of the Arts. Some of her
recent credits include co-writing and producing KINGSTON (selected to compete in the U.S.
Narrative Feature category at the 2026 Tribeca Festival) and co-producing MASQUERADE (a
BAFTA-Yugo Short Film Commissioning Grant winner). PERFORMANCE, an experimental
feature she assistant directed, is currently in post production.
Host: Jamie
Music by: Sammus
Edited by: Jamie Broadnax
