The Collective is a production hub for culture. We produce music, films, oral stories and histories that stand at the Black/African and Iranian intersections, in an artistic effort to fight racial erasure and be the culture.

Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda
Founder x Creative Director x Producer

Priscillia is a Freetown-based filmmaker, creative director and founder at the Collective for Black Iranians. She is a former human rights lawyer who has negotiated with armed groups for the release of child soldiers and designed programmes for their reintegration and family reunification. Her work in juvenile justice includes the design of programmes for the rehabilitation of children incarcerated for their association to terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army or Al Qaeda for the Maghreb.

Priscillia’s visual storytelling focuses on telling stories that center lesser known Black intersectional identities, their experiences, histories and the points of view formed in our societies past and present. She grounds her visual storytelling in Black African indigenous references, narratives and archives to lyrically bear witness to Black life in its varied diasporic iterations.

Priscillia has disrupted the Iranian narrative on identity worldwide by building a Black Iranian point of view, creating language and producing stories from a vantage point never acknowledged before as being part of any Iranian reality. A product of a childhood spent being the only Black Iranian girl she ever saw in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, to staring up at the tall buildings in French projects, Priscillia has spent most of her life observing mainstream society from the margins. Her ideas and creative vision were born out of those margins.

Priscillia holds dual International Law and Business degrees from Sorbonne Law, ESSEC Business School, NYU Law and is a USC Film school drop-out.

Her work has been featured in BBC World, AlJazeera, France 24, BBC Persian and more.

Priscillia is currently based in Freetown, Sierra Leone where she leads Hause of Salone, a production and creative agency and advises on critically conscious storytelling. She is completing two short films she has written and directed, Where My Memory Began and Bɔi, as well as her first feature, The Door to Tamba.

Alex Eskandarkhah
Co-Founder

Alex Eskandarkhah is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, public speaker and talk show host. He makes up one-half of the Gifted Gab, a media company centered on dialogue, storytelling and personal development. Alex is also the founder, writer/director and executive producer of Gamble Ave Filmworks, a production company specializing in underrepresented stories from shorts to features. In addition to that, he is a small business owner and operations director of several ventures, including Afro Era and Esfahan Persian Rugs. Alex was born to Iranian parents in Toronto, Ontario where he grew up and currently resides in Edmonton, Alberta. He graduated from York University in 2019, where he earned his bachelor's degree in Sociology. Alex has recently completed his broadcast TV hour directorial debut documentary project titled “Coaching While Black”.

Pardis Nkoy, Co-Founder

Born in Salt Lake City, UT, Pardis currently lives in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, NY where she works as a customer service representative in the jewelry industry. She earned a Bachelor Degree in Broadcast Communications with a minor in business administration and public relations from Gonzaga University. Pardis is of Congolese and Iranian descent.

Parisa Nkoy, Co-Founder

Parisa Nkoy was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah to her Iranian mother and Congolese father. She studied criminal justice and sociology at Gonzaga University, then spent years working in marketing and video production in Spokane, Washington. She has since returned to her roots and her love of performance art. Parisa is currently based in LA pursuing a variety of creative projects, namely singing/songwriting, and establishing her music career.

Homayoun Fiamor, Co-Founder

Homayoun is a French born actor and photographer. Fascinated by the arts, Homayoun grew up in a family of four children from a Togolese father and an Iranian mother. His love for Iranian cinema knows no bounds.

Norman Soltan Salahshour, Co-Founder

Norman is always ready to crack up a joke to make you laugh. A comedian and presenter/host, Norman is a graduate of the Cologne University where he received his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration. Born in Cologne, Germany, he is close to his Iranian mother and fond of his Congolese father’s paintings.