From The District to The World is an experimental narrative centred around a family in South Central, LA as they navigate the haunting circumstances around them while painting a contemporary portrait of the city through different perspectives. As a military brat who spent most of my life moving every couple of years, one thing that's informed my storytelling is observing everyday people, from so many walks of life, at different stages. We found our characters after Nana and I established that it should feel universal, especially because memory is so special. We can all think back to a time where we eavesdropped on a conversation we were too young to understand. We've all experienced wanting approval from our friends. We've all resorted to an outlet, whether creative or not, that helps us understand what's happening around us. So many of us have witnessed things that we felt like we couldn't talk about or didn't know how to talk about, and we let it consume us and manifest itself into the way we have relationships or look at the world. With our main character and the final scene, we wanted to spark a deep look at the secrets we keep and why we sweep things under the rug just to move forward or avoid the hard conversations...is it always for the greater good?

Mikayla is a director and photographer living in Los Angeles, CA. Extremely dedicated to powerful, emotive imagery and nuances surrounding people of colour, she has a range of experience from documentary to music videos to commercial and editorial; working with artists such as Brent Faiyaz, Nana and Amine and companies like Apple, Snapchat, Fortnite and Nike. She is steadily working to evolve more into the longer form, narrative and commercial space as the newest addition to Institute Pictures, formerly known as Girl Culture Films headed up by Lauren Greenfield & Frank Evers.