Yhá Mourhia Wright: Founder/Filmmaker
Episode Description:
Yhá Mourhia Wright is a bicoastal, multi-hyphenate artist from San José, CA. In May 2016, she graduated with her MFA in Acting from the Actors Studio Drama School. Upon graduation, she founded her production company, YháWright Productions, and developed the company’s first original series, #LoveMyRoomie, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. During her previous time as the Senior Video Producer for MadameNoire, she simultaneously led production for three digital shows: Listen to Black Women, In This Room, and Healthy Her. Yhá Mourhia has had the pleasure to interview beloved talent such as Kim Fields, Robin Givens, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Ester Dean, and Emil Wilbekin. Her most recent podcast, Inside Out Podcast, can be found on iHeart Radio, Spotify, and Apple Podcast. In 201, Yhá Mourhia became a published author in the anthology, Purpose to Passion: A Journey to Self-Care in which she shares her journey to recovering from sexual assault and alchemizing her pain into a testimony.
This year, she has joined Black Girls Film Camp as the Production Advisor and is the Manager of Learning for the CBS Leadership Pipeline Challenge. She served as the Programs Director for the Black TV & Film Collective from 2021-2023. Her short film, Don’t Be Desperate, starring D. Woods (Broadway’s For Colored Girls…, ALLBLK’s STUCK WITH U, Danity Kane) premiered at the 2022 Hip Hop Film Festival (NYC), was an official selection at the 2022 Newark International Film Festival, won the Independent Spirit Film Award at the 2022 Detroit Black Film Festival and was nominated for Outstanding Music at the 2023 Micheaux Film Festival (Los Angeles, CA). Additional Credits Include Spot A True Period Piece (Short Film, Producer, Assistant Director); Pillow Talk streaming on BET+ (Supporting Actress); and The Basement (LABryinth Theater Company 2020 Intensive, Writer).
In this episode, Yhá Mourhia shares her journey producing passion projects through the pandemic, and discusses the importance of finding a good work/life balance.
Transcript:
Fanshen: [00:00:00] Hey, Sista Brunch family. I'm Fanshen Cox, your host of, season five of, Sista Brunch. We are all about sharing the stories of black women and gender expansive people who are thriving, killing it, doing it all, and taking naps as we'll talk about with our guests today in entertainment and media. We hope you do. Today we are welcoming a multi hyphenate artist from San Jose, California, Yhá Mourhia Wright. She's a graduate of the Actors Studio Drama School and the founder of YháWright Productions. Can't wait to get into that to production company founders right here. This is going to be a good one. You can find two of her projects currently streaming on. Amazon Prime or on Aspire TV. She's worked for Madame Noir and CBS. She's got a podcast called Inside Out podcast and she works with our favorite organization on. the entire planet. [00:01:00] We've got co hosts from them this season, Black Girls Film Camp, and she is the production supervisor for Black Girls Film Camp. Welcome, Yhá Mourhia Wright.
Yhá Mourhia: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Fanshen: you know, I, I'm, I was like, should I, how far should I get into the episode before saying this, but I also have to say thank you because you helped my niece Jaida Cox when she was in Black Girls Film Camp and she just raved about you And she was like, Auntie, how do you not know Yhá Mourhia? You two are exactly the same. and so, So yeah, she really did. She was like, you too, You too. You you're doing the same kind of work, you know? so I'm thrilled to have you and I'm grateful for all the guidance and support that you gave Jaida too too
Yhá Mourhia: Oh, Jaida is she's so sweet and she joined us later on in the process too and worked so hard. She turned over her screenplay in like maybe like four days. And I mean, that was her first time ever writing a screenplay. So that's not just turning it over. That's also [00:02:00] learning formatting.
Fanshen: She's brilliant. She's a volleyball player. She's now on poms. She's a filmmaker.
Yhá Mourhia: Was she in soccer? Is she in soccer too? I swear she had soccer
Fanshen: Her brother, Solomon was in soccer,
Yhá Mourhia: Okay, maybe it was volleyball. But yeah, volleyball. But she's like on her, her Saturdays and then the still meeting and present and It was amazing. And always like, very like, calm, like, okay, okay. Jaida’s, yeah, she's amazing.
Fanshen: It's my, it's my heart, my heart. I love you too, Solomon, but you know, this is Sista brunch So we got to just talk about Jaida and love up on her. All right. So Yhá Mourhia we always love to start with our guests. Journeys and it can go It could go, you know, and great, great grandparents, wherever, as far back as you want to where you really got seeds planted to becoming the founder that you are, the filmmaker, the multi hyphenate artist.
Yhá Mourhia: Well, on one day, on October 3rd, 1987, Yhá Mourhia Wright was born. That's the truth, but, but you know, my, [00:03:00] my parents are from Gary, Indiana. and so ill, yeah. And, my dad was in the Navy, and the way that my parents ended up moving out here is that they moved him to Moffett Field, a station at Moffett Field in Mountain View, and back in 84. So my brother had just been born, and so I was born in the Bay Area, in California. At Stanford Hospital, I thought it was a sign that I was supposed to go to Stanford. It was not, but I wasn't, I was in The Color Purple musical at Stanford. so I mean, yeah, yeah.
Fanshen: was how you were supposed to be there.
Yhá Mourhia: yeah, yeah, yeah. But but yeah, I mean. I had imaginary friends. I talk about it. all the time. I think every interview I've, I've kind of slide it in there because so it really is so much the fabric of my storytelling, my imaginary friends were Shauna, Rana and Malika sometimes Shauna Rana was one person. Malika was always, you know, her own person, but Shauna Rana could fragment into two or sometimes be one. So two imaginary friends,[00:04:00]
Fanshen: I love it.
Yhá Mourhia: and I love my baby dolls and I loved watching TV and cartoons and I loved Home Alone. I love storytelling. I loved writing very much. So I was just telling a friend the other day. I was like, you know, I really live in my head, and that has a bad rap, but I mean, that's how I'm creating stories, and that's also how I create the realities that I want, you know, being like, ooh, I'm gonna make a series, and then making it, ooh, it needs a place to live, and then putting it on Prime, but yeah, I, I always wrote stories or at least, imagined them and created a world and when I was six years old or just about six, my sister was born, and I always wanted a little sister. and, and yeah, like, I, I was writing stories. I was writing skits for church plays. I got my first laptop, which I didn't realize how fortunate I was, but I got my first laptop in, Maybe 6th grade. I was a part of this, program sponsored by Intel, and it was Carver [00:05:00] Scholars, it eventually was changed to Green Scholars, but, it was for Black high achieving students throughout the Bay Area, but particularly South Bay, the Silicon Valley. No matter what schools you went to, we all had these Saturday sessions, these tech sessions. They were doing, things that we see nowadays back very early on. Yeah, yeah. Debra Watkins is the founder. And so, I had a laptop and I was writing stories and novels. During the holidays, we would go visit, often we would go visit our family, our relatives in Gary, Indiana. And at that time in the mid nineties, Gary was like the, the, you know, crime capital of the world. It was like probably competing with Detroit or maybe New Orleans. But at one point it was like number one or number two. I remember back in 1998 ish and we were there and I would go downstairs to my grandparents basement. And I would just write my novels on their computer and and I would print it and I would use Microsoft Paint. To design the cover of of [00:06:00] them and I would yeah, I was doing all of this and that's where I would go. Everybody would be playing. The kids would be playing and but I would just go write. And so it started really early on. Yeah,
Fanshen: And you're, you're also a published author. I didn't mention that in your bio. So
Yhá Mourhia: I am.
Fanshen: that's, you know, you're talking about kind of having the laptop and writing and also the imaginary friends. So the, the, creative then filtered into you actually writing, because some folks have imaginary friends, and then they don't do anything with that, but you became a filmmaker, you became a writer. and And you also learned production, which I think a lot of people who see themselves as writers, primarily kind of, then have to wait for a producer to come along and a director to come along to actually get things moving. But you, you do all of that as well. How did you start to learn about production?
Yhá Mourhia: so in I mean, I have to credit in high school, I [00:07:00] was in student body government. So that was production. We were putting on rallies. I still get nostalgic butterflies when I think about, our homecoming float competition. And so we would build the float. We would use chicken wire and we had these float competitions between the classes and we would ride on the floats. And if you didn't get to ride on the float, you'd be mad. You'd be staying up late at night. You would also have choreographed dances for, the homecoming rally. Like, I was already very much so in that world. And then when I went into undergrad at Santa Clara University, I was actually a poli sci major planning to go to law school, planning, but like not taking Any of the government classes. I discovered I was like, Oh, I can finally take those theater courses because my parents couldn't afford, Local children's theater was expensive. So in Santa Clara, I would start taking theater courses, and then we had an annual Black Student Union MLK night, we would have the performances and it'd be on the main stage theater and so [00:08:00] it used to just kind of be, you know, skits and then here comes Yhá Mourhia coming along, and we were filling seats and inviting people. We took it to a school in EPA in East Palo Alto, and we took the performance and adapted it to their stage and had a whole tech rehearsal there. And then by 2009,I had written the play. Pulled the costume pieces from our our costume department in, in college. I just knew that I wanted to make things happen. And I, on top of that, for our multicultural center, I was an event planner. in 2008, I planned our awards. And, I took it to a new level. It used to just kind of be like a. Dinner kind of chill thing, but I had color palette and I just love doing this stuff. Honestly, again, living in my head and I was just like, oh, can anybody make it happen? You can. Okay, let's do it. It's like a very interesting child, like naivete that I still have intact somewhere in the center of me that like I just say, okay, let's do it.
Fanshen: I love that. And I think, you [00:09:00] know, it's, it's interesting. We, you know, we're kind of intergenerational here at Sista Brunch. And even when I ask that question, you know, I tend to the journey question, you know, I tend to kind of be like, well, so how did you learn how to produce formally? And your answer, your initial answer is so perfect. And I love it that folks who are younger than me are like, well, you know, I was doing event planning. I was doing the floats at my school, like that. And that is producing. And it's so beautiful that you all understand that you are building those skills in all these other ways. If Hollywood tells you, Oh, they need to see this on your resume or, you know, or, filmmaking programs, et cetera. It's so wrong because it's about leadership skills. It's about people skills. you were also in BSU. So it's also about identities and like being aware of the kinds of stories that we want to focus on. Those of us who are a little bit older probably try to focus on more traditional means of becoming a [00:10:00] producer, and I love how kind of freewheeling you all are in the sense of like this is, you know, these are all these different things I do and therefore I can make three, four, five short films. Speaking of which, I got to see yours at the Micheaux Film Festival,
Yhá Mourhia: Yeah.
Fanshen: I love that synergy too, which is, we were introduced by Jaida then, you know, you were on our list of people to speak to at Micheaux. Then the strike happened and we had to put it off. So, I want to take, Don't Be Desperate as kind of a case study for our listeners, because you've done something that's really hard to do, which is you got distribution for your film. So will you take us like the short version of how you went from seedling of the idea all the way to getting it onto Aspire TV?
Yhá Mourhia: Yeah. So Don't Be Desperate is this is the first time I've ever called it this. It's like the one of the most obnoxious projects I've had. And here's the reason why it was, it was kind of obnoxious of me, like, a [00:11:00] little bit, like, it's a little obnoxious, but, but, but it worked. so so back in, May 2021, a colleague of mine had she's an actress and was like, Hey, I need I need my real to be updated. And so she commissioned me to write a few short scenes, like 5 minutes or less 5 pages or less for her reel. So I ended writing 3 different short films and. then I got this wise idea from these projects, like, oh, we should film three different short films, in three different cities, and we'll be a collective of women doing this, right? And of that, one of those projects, the seedling of it was Don't Be Desperate, which was maybe always called Don't Be Desperate, I don't think it was though. But in any case, it was just the date scene in Don't Be desperate. And I can provide you with, like, with clips too, if you want to intertwine that into the podcast. But it was a date scene.
Fanshen: I love you producing. Look, you came on and produced my podcast for me!
Yhá Mourhia: Yes, I can't help it. I can't help it. I can't help it. Just let me know what scene you [00:12:00] need. I'll give you
Fanshen: will. We will.
Yhá Mourhia: scenes. I can't help it. But yeah, it was the date scene only. And she wakes up and she's like, Janice, I had this crazy dream. And it's kind of just that. And then I I sent it to a couple of people. One of them is Letitia Guillory, who is a phenomenal writer, and also at that time, she was a board member of the Black TV and Film Collective, and I was head of staff, program director at BTFC at the time. And then I sent it to Shannon Shannon, who is people know her as Professional Pen. The Shannan Johnson of Professional Pen who I've been, utilizing as my script consultant for many years now, probably like six years now. And Shannon gave me notes. She was like, this needs development. And Letitia gave me notes. And she was just like oh, well, you have a musical element in there because she's a Broadway hopeful. Why don't you like, add music? I think she and Shannon both kind of said that. I was like, okay, I'll come to New York, you know what, five minutes, let's make it a little longer, let's make a film. And they're like, wait, [00:13:00] how are we going to get the funding? I was like, oh, it doesn't matter, we'll get it. You know, I know people, we'll just, me and my crew, we'll come together, we'll start, you know, having pre production meetings. And we'll cast, and we'll just like, kind of pay people, you know, we'll find it, it'll work out. No money for this. No money for this. Let's go do it. And so, anyways, yeah, we ended up filming Don't Be Desperate in summer of 2021. And then Hurricane, who is she? I forget her name right now. She came in 2021 and did the tri state area and shut down the production. It was the last day. It was like the final hour and we had to then push production to mid October. And we had two more days of production in mid October. So it took five days for that film. Mind you, I also at the time was back and forth between New York and the Bay Area. Resetting my life in the Bay Area after August 2020. So 3 weeks later, but the flight back to New [00:14:00] York. Ended up staying there for like about four weeks. In any case, in that time, we finished Don't Be Desperate. One thing I'll let people know, folks who are like, oh, I shot the film and I have to, maybe they don't have finishing funds or which you should always keep that in your budget, but maybe they don't. Or they don't have enough finishing funds. Don't think just because you complete the project that you have to release it the next year. That was a mistake, a lesson learned from Don't Be Desperate. Funny thing is, Love My Roomie took me six years and it took me a long time for Love My Roomie to get in front of people. And I think I was being reactive because I didn't want to wait that long again. I wanted to keep going because Love My Roomie took me so long. And so for Don't
Fanshen: Love My Roomie is the one you can see on Amazon Prime
Yhá Mourhia: yes, Love My Roomie you can see on Amazon Prime, yes. And so it took me so long that I ended up with Don't Be Desperate pushing right through post and it took us six months and I was submitting it to festivals and not getting in because the project wasn't just like [00:15:00] skeletal. I also didn't have the sound where it needed to be. It has singing. There's like, very specific things that needed to happen in post sound. It costs a lot of money in post sound to get even where it is now. And fun fact, even before Micheaux, I had to give it another sound pass through a sound engineer because I was getting quality flags through the DCP. But now because of that, you know, the quality of sound is, I think, as sharp as we're going to get it because Tristan who worked on the sound is
Yhá Mourhia: Hey, everyone. I'm Yhá Mourhia Wright, and you're listening to the Sista Brunch Podcast.
Fanshen: Hey family, it's Fanshen and you're listening to Sista Brunch. You can watch video clips of all of our guests by following and interacting with us on Instagram @SistaBrunchPodcast.
Did you know that you now can become an essential part of the Sista Brunch community? You're already doing so much for us. We appreciate your reviews. We appreciate your likes and follows on [00:16:00] social media, but you can also join our Patreon community to unlock some community events together.
And most importantly, be a driving force behind the magic of Sista Brunch. Check out patreon. com slash Sista Brunch to learn how you can support us and continuing to bring you the stories of Black women and gender expansive people thriving in entertainment and media. Thank you so much. Ready for more? Let's dive right back in with our guest Yhá Mourhia Wright.
like you said you, in a way you just said, don't feel like you need to rush to get your film made, but you did this with Don't Be Desperate you shot it, you cut it, and then you got distribution within a pretty short. Okay.
Yhá Mourhia: Not sorry. So let me clarify. I'm glad you said that because I think in these interviews [00:17:00] and panels in general for the sake of summarizing and being on to the next thing we forget and people don't have full context. So, it was 2021 we filmed it, right? 2022 took six months of post production, really like eight because I have an original score. It's very long. It technically is like 40 minutes. That's a short film. It is technically the extended short film still qualified, but it's like,
Fanshen: Yes.
Yhá Mourhia: It got cut down to 27 and then another cut that 18 minutes. In any case, there was that. We shot a lot. We got a lot of coverage. A lot of coverage. There's a lot of scenes. So there's all these things. It took a long time in post production. Also, my crew, I wasn't able to pay them to do it full time. So it's like they had to do it here and there. They got paid, but like, come on.
Fanshen: hmm.
Yhá Mourhia: So we didn't get into Micheaux in 2022 and what changed? Well the project was just a little bit removed from finished, but I think it was way too long. I submitted late, like, on the deadline. And it's a [00:18:00] longer project. So for that, my advice is to submit as early as possible. And I think I just had a lot of things that were not working for me, including the project not being as strong as it could be.
So, like, Anyways, continued to go to the, the, you know, to the drawing board. And then, you know, when I applied again, they tell you not to do that for projects, by the way, unless your project is like very different. And I did it again. I was just like, Hey, I know, I submitted this last year. But the team and I, we went, you know, I wrote this in my cover letter. We went to the drawing board. We did, and here I am again. I'm proud of what this is and I hope you'll like it too. And we got nominated for outstanding score.
Fanshen: Yes. you sure did.Yes and Micheaux's a great festival.
Yhá Mourhia: A great festival. They're amazing. So Aspire TV reached out to Black TV and Film Collective. At that time, I was the program's director. And they were like, hey, we're programming our sixth season of our urban indie film block. Can you submit films? We had 80 [00:19:00] submissions within like two weeks, and Kellyanne, who was the outreach community coordinator, myself, with the help of Okema T. Moore and Laura Fielder, we, and went through all of those projects we didn't, like, for ourselves, like, you know, obviously conflict of interest, so other people rated it. And we submitted over 40 films, and 32 films got selected from Black TV and Film collective. And Love My Roomie didn't get selected, by the way. Fun fact, if people were like, oh, no, Love My Roomie didn't get selected, they were like, sorry sis, like, It's a long project. We only had like a 44 minute block max and you have 50 million different episodes. Like it's not working. But Don't Be Desperate got it got the distribution deal. So I love people to know like there's it's not like, you know one project did well and another project didn't and not everything is going to be doing well at the same time or getting what you want at the same time. So
Fanshen: Which I think speaks to exactly what you do is do a lot and put them out there. You know, I think also sometimes we get stuck in, [00:20:00] I got to make it perfect. I got to make it just right. And you also gave this, gave us the example of not getting into a festival you wanted to get into. And instead of just submitting the same thing again, which you. So true. Programmers do not want to see that, but you went back, you reworked it, and then you got back in. And I think that's so valuable. Let's talk about your new podcast and also talk about Yhá Wright Productions. I'm assuming those two are connected. So share about both.
Yhá Mourhia: Yeah so Inside Out Podcast started out in 2020. I was two days back in the Bay after my family urgently being like, come back. There's a pandemic. And so I was laying on my bed in my childhood room and
I'm like, okay, watching TV, like watching a pandemic unfold. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? And I was deep in pre production for another project called It Stays Here, which is probably one of,
Fanshen: Course you were.
Yhá Mourhia: which is probably one of my [00:21:00] strongest stories and scripts to date for short film. It's really good. It's actually the Love My Roomie prequel. But production got shut down. And I couldn't do it. And I was like, I had an idea about the podcast. And I was going through heartbreak at the time. I was going through a lot all at once. And I was like,
I guess the podcast makes sense. And that's how I came to Inside Out Podcast. As I was going through my own spiritual journey. And it ended up being very healing for myself and others. And then fast forward to spring 2021, where am I now? I'm in Don't Be Desperate land. So the podcast started falling to the wayside.
And here we are on the other side of Don't Be Desperate land. I'm like, oh yeah, that podcast I ditched for Don't Be Desperate.
Fanshen: What can we hear on Inside Out? what do you focus on?
Yhá Mourhia: Inside Out is all about humanizing the brand is what is my tagline for it. And it's yeah, it's about really diving into who we are. Like, you know, there's Yhá Mourhia the brand on instagram and my story, but it's like, but yeah, [00:22:00] what makes you tick? What are your trials and tribulations? Like those, those nuances that I think are missing from a lot of yeah unless somebody's brand is to keep it real, you don't really see that on social media. You see a lot of wins. And I think that in this age where we are now realizing how much already we're reliant on AI, but also how much of a threat AI is, I think it's really important for us to continue to connect the humanity dots with what we see of each other on social media. So it's really about that. Entrepreneurs, you know, thought leaders, there's my Midwest entrepreneurs. I get country sometimes. My thought leaders, thought leaders, I know it comes in. But yeah so I'm excited. Previously, you know, it was just audio only. And they were just starting to put any platform and you can, you know, virtually record face to face and they're all beta back in 2020 that I knew of. So it's all in person filming it in a studio in [00:23:00] Burbank and then I have a new, yeah. I have a new studio that I'll also do some remote filming in in Atlanta, and then I'll be doing it virtually as well. So it'll be kind of different places, but I'm excited.
Fanshen: Alright. You know, I got to ask, each season, sometimes we alternate with this question. Some guests, we don't, some guests we ask, but you've talked about a lot of things that cost money to do. so I'm gonna ask
Yhá Mourhia: Please ask the question.
Fanshen: the, you know, and, and really the question is around, and this is. Especially when we have executives, like kind of people who don't necessarily do more freelance jobs, but you, you've got a production company. How do you fundraise? where do you get the money from?
Yhá Mourhia: That's a great question. So I'll give you my quick since 2018 hustle story. So jobs only, focus on work. So I had full time jobs. And then when it came to going back to the drawing board for Love My Roomie in 2019, I was a senior video [00:24:00] producer at Madame Noir, so I had a full time salaried, benefit job. And then, what a lot of people don't know, is on the weekends, I was not outside in New York. I was working part time at Playwrights Horizons. I was working there in the box office, so, you know, I would have people talking to me while on the phone, whatever. I'm a whole senior video producer, you know, I could be like, Mm hmm, I met Fantasia, you know, I met Loretta Devine. She pointed out that my heel was broken, I knew it was, and I was hoping she didn't notice. She was so sweet. Yeah, I had to welcome her, she was like, she was like, Baby, your heel, and I was like, Oh!
Fanshen: you said it to her.
Yhá Mourhia: anyway, I digress.
Fanshen: You channeled her. I love that. I
Yhá Mourhia: But yeah, I
Fanshen: you were with like all of these big names.
Yhá Mourhia: meeting and then on Saturdays, Saturdays and Sundays, I was humble and humble. Making maybe an extra 15, 18 an hour, working at a box office for anywhere to 5 to 8 hours. And there was a point at the end of October of [00:25:00] 2019 where I had worked 35 days in a row. And I do mean a row.
Fanshen: No.
Yhá Mourhia: And that is how
Fanshen: We talked about this
Yhá Mourhia: we did talk about this, and I ended up in therapy. I ended up in therapy. I'm being honest, but this is, but this is how.
Fanshen: That's what Inside Out is
Yhá Mourhia: Right. But I,
Fanshen: We got a little taste of it.
Yhá Mourhia: yeah, but I did, I did fundraise for my projects, but ultimately my strength was never crowdfunding. And so I didn't, get all I got good amount of donations and people who would donate regularly to my my company's a nonprofit and sponsored under a Fractured Atlas, so they would donate regularly. And that was very helpful. But the bigger cost, it would be me working my 9 to 5 right now. Like, I have a full time job. So, I do that, and then I have my part time freelance job, and that's how I'm able to do what I do. That's just my truth. I'm working on though, the next year though, this next year what I am working on is now [00:26:00] sponsorships and grants. So, I'm pivoting, but I've been such a doer. That I often felt like if I waited for the money to come, I didn't know when I was going to be able to make my project. So there was just a lot of sacrifice in order to make them. And I've just reached a point now where I'm like, okay, I have enough under my belt, even access to people who can help me with my grants. That I can, I can get this money without . Literally not eating, which is like at the bottom of my journey, what I was doing. Like
Fanshen: and not working 35 days in a row.
Yhá Mourhia: that, that as
Fanshen: doing that too. Wow, I just have to say that we should all get our work out there all the time, that's, I'm a firm believer in that you don't wait until it's perfect to get it out there. At the same time, there are standards, right? And they don't have to be European standards. Thank God, like those are not our standards. We have our own, but we gotta be able to see you. You should make some nice looking pictures, right? It should [00:27:00] look nice. And we got to be able to hear you like all those things that are important when you are in this medium. And I have to just tell you that your work is beautiful.
Yhá Mourhia: Thank you.
Fanshen: and knowing, knowing how much, uh, or how little resources, how few resources you had to do those, I just want to say, congratulations, and that
Yhá Mourhia: Thank you.
Fanshen: you’re an amazing role model for so still doing really high quality content. So this is our signature Sista brunch question, which is that you and young Yhá Mourhia, you
Yhá Mourhia: Mm hmm.
Fanshen: can choose what age she is. The two of you are sitting down for a Sista Brunch. Sista Brunch came out of DGA Training Program. the women of color mentors would take their trainees out to a brunch on the weekends to be able to really talk about what they were experiencing. They started to do just like gatherings of Black women and women of color. And I was like, all of these women have these incredible stories. Let's make a [00:28:00] podcast out of it. So that's why the brunch theme. And so if you were having a brunch, you were the mentor for your younger self, what are you both eating? What are you both drinking? And what do you tell her?
Yhá Mourhia: We're eating breakfast tacos cause it's brunch.
Fanshen: Love it. And you're from San Jose. You're
Yhá Mourhia: Yeah, yeah,
Fanshen: that’s such a California
Yhá Mourhia: absolutely. I don't honestly think there's a week in my life that I don't eat tacos, so definitely breakfast tacos. Pretty sure I'm always eating
Fanshen: now I got to ask, where's your favorite place to get tacos out here?
Yhá Mourhia: So, I'm still navigating the L. A. taco scene, but there's a taco truck what's his name? I forget his name, he's right across the street from me, and he has the best, best tacos. Birria Tacos too is the best tacos. So
Fanshen: Thank you. So you're both having tacos. What are you
Yhá Mourhia: we're eating breakfast tacos. We're probably drinking going to say we're drinking apple juice because young Yhá Mourhia [00:29:00] is not having a mimosa. So we're drinking some apple juice.
Fanshen: And you're being a good role model for her. You're not, you're not going to have a mimosa in front of her. I
Yhá Mourhia: No, I don't want her to be curious about mimosas that early.
Fanshen: Nope. Nope. And what do you, what do you tell her?
Yhá Mourhia: What do I tell her? I tell her that it's okay to take your time. Yeah, I tell her it's okay to take your time. And that you're not racing against anyone else. But she doesn't really think that, but you're not racing against yourself, you have nothing to prove. Take your time and just enjoy it. Allow yourself to enjoy it, it being life.
I would tell her that. Yeah, yeah.
Fanshen: Beautiful. Thank you so much. Yhá Mourhia
Yhá Mourhia: Thank you.
Fanshen: we're so glad to have you.
Yhá Mourhia: Thank you.
I've been enjoying myself, this has been great. [00:30:00] Okay,
Fanshen: Thank you, Sista Brunch family for showing up to be part of today's Sista Brunch with Yhá Mourhia Wright. We are so grateful for your energy, engagement, and your love. Thank you for sharing your reviews, telling your people about us and engaging with us on our Instagram @sistabrunchpodcast. We're on TikTok under our production company's TikTok profile @trujulomedia, T R U J U L O. You can read the transcript of every episode and find show notes on our website at SistaBrunch. com. If you prefer video and you want to see our guests' lovely faces, we also put the full video interviews up on the TruJuLo YouTube channel that is youtube. com slash TruJuLo media, T R U J U L O media. We so appreciate your support by subscribing to our podcast, leaving us a great review and sharing it with your [00:31:00] friends, family, colleagues, community, anybody with an interest in working in film and TV, whether they already do, they want to, or if they're even just curious of what it's like, join us.
Season five of Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions. Our co creators are Fanshen Cox, that's me, Anya Adams, Christabel Nsiah Buadi, and Brittany Turner. Sista Brunch is a Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program Project.
We acknowledge that the land we record our podcast on is the original land of the Tongva and the Chumash people. We cannot wait to see you next time. Take care, everybody.
