Luana Graves Sellars (Hilton Head Island, South Carolina)

A native-born New Yorker, Luana Graves Sellars moved to Florida and discovered that she was really "a mis-placed Floridian.” She knew that snow and nor’easter’s were not meant for her. At Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, she earned a dual degree in Journalism and Black History with a minor in Business.

With her degrees, she was not prepared to live on Hilton Head Island, one of the most culturally rich and historic areas of the South. The island motivated her to become a contributing writer for local magazines with a focus on Gullah culture, its history, people and native island issues by researching, documenting and publishing cultural legacies in an effort towards preservation.

In 2021, she started her own company, Sankofa Communications expanding her content creation into visual media, where she has written, directed, and produced multiple award winning historic and culturally focused documentaries that have received awards and screened in several US cities as well as internationally in Cannes, France, Toronto, Canada and Berlin, and Munich, Germany.

The documentary, Harriet Tubman | From the Railroad to a Spy is broadcasting nationally on PBS and has won six awards, including Best Documentary Short - Global LA Film Festival, Best Documentary Film - Toronto Indie Filmmakers Festival 2025, Best Film - Africa USA International Film Festival 2024, Exceptional Merit - Documentaries Without Borders 2024 as well as 10 festival nominations.

The Colored Troops of the Civil War | Courage. Determination. Survival (has won six awards including the San Diego Black Film Festival | Best Documentary 2025, Best Documentary Feature Film Toronto Indie Filmmakers Festival 2025, Munich New Wave Short Documentary Festival 2025, Global LA Film Festival Best Trailer 2024 and Global Film Festival | Honorable Mention Documentary 2024, Grand Jury Heritage Award - Filmteenth International Black Film Festival 2024, Exceptional Merit - Documentaries Without Borders 2024, Africa USA International Film Festival | Honorable Mention 2024, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival | Documentary Exceptional Merit 2024, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival | Documentary Exceptional Merit - Narration Talent 2024, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival | Documentary Excellence - Research 2024 in addition to 10 festival nominations).

In addition to the individual awards that the films have received, she has also won Best Producer as well as being nominated for Best Director. Her work as producer and host of the award-winning culturally focused Lowcountry Gullah Podcast, which is in its 4th season, has also been recognized.

In 2025, she was honored to have the podcast and all of her films picked up by the Roku Channel Amplified Voices TV, where truth-telling information and stories are told. The Channel has content from Al Sharpton, Toure, and many other established African American voices.

As the owner of Sankofa Communications, founder of the nonprofit(s) Lowcountry Gullah and the Lowcountry Gullah Foundation, which was awarded the SCORE of the Lowcountry Nonprofit of the Year 2022, she is also a community activist and cultural influencer. In May 2023, the Truth Telling Project recognized her work as a cultural influencer with their Radical Truth Teller Award.

In African tradition, it is expected that one not only speaks in their voice, but also in the voice of our voiceless ancestors. Luana often says, like the African Akan symbol of the sankofa, “It’s so important that we learn from the past to improve the future.”

Her work and her passion for her culture stems from telling the untold stories of her ancestors, Catherine and George Ward, who survived being enslaved at Brookgreen Gardens, a rice plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina.

Luana is sustaining and preserving Gullah culture for future generations by telling the untold stories that educate and inspire people to understand more about who they are and where they came from.