Shari Lynette Carpenter, Miko Lim and Oscar Rene Lozoya have been selected to participate in the 2023-2025 Paramount Directors Initiative, Paramount Global announced Thursday.
The biennial program, now in its 19th year, brings these directors together with directors from CBS Television Network, CBS Studios, Paramount Television Studios and Paramount Global. The main focus of the program is to provide directors with access and opportunity, with an emphasis on individuals from underrepresented groups.
Throughout the program, directors will gain invaluable insight into the Paramount Global Network episodic directing process. Attendees not only get the opportunity to observe the detailed technical aspects of the process, but also build relationships with showrunners, producers, network leaders and other key decision makers.
The program also now guarantees participants a television episode to host on the CBS Television Network.
“At Paramount, we believe that diversity and inclusion is key to creating compelling and meaningful content for our audiences, and this program is an important step in achieving that goal,” said Tiffany Smith-Anoa’i, executive vice president of Entertainment Diversity and Inclusion at Paramount. “We are thrilled to announce our initiative’s newest class of talented directors looking to break into network television. We are also proud to have Yasmin Dunn, Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion at Paramount, leading this project as we are committed to creating a pipeline of inclusive talent for our industry.”
Carpenter is an award-winning writer and director who began her career with a fan letter she wrote to Spike Lee. During her decade and a half as a script supervisor for Lee and many other notable directors, Carpenter built her own writing and directing portfolio and directed a number of short films and indie features. In 2021, Ava DuVernay invited Carpenter to direct her first televised episode in the critically acclaimed series Queen Sugar. Carpenter has also directed three television films, Three is complicated for TVOne, as well Single black woman And Mary J. Blige’s Strength in a Woman for lifetime. A graduate of NYU, Carpenter is a member of the DGA Women’s Steering Committee Squad and a finalist for The Writer’s Lab. She is a Rockefeller Fellowship nominee, Gordon Parks Award nominee, and Stowe Story Lab board member and graduate student.
Lim is an award-winning Los Angeles director and photographer with clients such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Meta and Citi Group, all of whom have drawn on Lim’s unique talent to direct branded content and commercials. 2022 his short documentary ocean mother earned him a Best Director Clio, his Adidas spot What is another was shortlisted at Cannes and named Advertising Sport Photographer of the Year by the Associated Press. Lim has managed a variety of celebrity talent, athletes and musicians such as Jennifer Lopez, Jay-Z, Michael Jordan and Patrick Mahomes. His films have been viewed well over 1 billion times on YouTube and he has the most watched Adidas commercial of all time. Lim is also a staunch advocate for environmental justice, most recently leading volunteer work for the Surfrider Foundation.
Lozoya is a Los Angeles-based director who began his career as an editor/photojournalist for local Bakersfield news station KBAK, a correspondent for Fox News (national), and a broadcast/publicity director for the National Basketball Association. Oscar’s passion for narrative storytelling led him to a position as a film editor at Wolf Films. There he developed the editing skills that led to a 10-year career in television post-production. Besides Wolf Films, he has worked on many other shows with companies such as ABC, Bad Robot, Warner Bros. and CBS. In 2022, Oscar got the opportunity to direct an episode of Law and order: SVU.
Past participants in the Paramount Directors Initiative include Zetna Fuentes (woman secretary, zoo, Jane the maiden), Laura Belsey (NCIS: New Orleans, bull, criminal thoughts), Lily Mariye (criminal thoughts, NCIS: Los Angeles MacGyver) Kevin Berlandi (bull, criminal thoughts), Joy T Lane (fire land) and Lionel Coleman (NCIS: New Orleans), among other.