Leola Calzolai-Stewart is a director, editor and producer, bringing over 15 years experience in documentary film and video to FLOWSTATE Films. THE AMERICAN DIPLOMAT, Leola’s directorial debut, was awarded two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a development grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The film aired on PBS' American Experience in February 2022. The project was selected as part of Black Public Media’s 2019 360 Incubator+ program and Leola is one of Firelight Media’s Documentary Lab Fellows for 2019-21. Leola co-produced and edited the feature documentary, THE LAST SONG BEFORE THE WAR and edited the feature documentary DEAR WALMART. She has an MA in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a BA in international affairs from the University of California, Davis. Leola studied film at the Tshwane Institute of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa and has lived in Mali, South Africa, Belgium, Brazil, and Canada. She has been to Timbuktu. Twice. She has two kids and currently lives between Ontario and Virginia.

When do you feel in a flow state?
I never feel in a flow state when I first sit down to edit. There is usually a lot of angst and coffee involved, an almost obsessive need to name and organize bins, log footage, and take notes on the script. When I finally face that empty timeline, the first cut is the hardest. But once I have that in there and am happy with the first few cuts, something always undoubtedly takes over. I get into my rhythm and my flow, I usually forget to eat lunch, and look up only when it’s time to go get the kids. And then I come back the next day and pick up in the timeline where I left off along with the coffee and the angst.

Which words or phrases to do you most overuse?
According to my husband, it’s “I’m just sayin’…”