Kelsey Fordham

Kelsey Fordham is an award-winning director, actress and producer committed to telling powerful and daring stories with a soul. Her art is influenced by over 6 years of work for a documentary-based NGO that partnered with local leaders to provide protection resources to vulnerable communities in some of the most dangerous areas of central Africa. There, Kelsey witnessed film at its best and fell head over heels for the power of storytelling. As an actor Kelsey is known for her ability to tap into the depths of the human experience with raw honesty, vulnerability and strength. She is a winner of Leah Daniels Butler's 2020 Monologue Challenge and won Best Actress at the San Diego Film Awards for her leading role in See Me. She has led the screen in over a dozen projects including Run Out Groove, Catastrophizing and This Land. Recently, she was cast as May in a Los Angeles production of Sam Shepard's Fool for Love as well as the lead in the upcoming indie feature Blood Wine - both to begin production in 2022. As a filmmaker, Kelsey has produced over a dozen films including the 2021 short, Milo, written by and starring Harry Shum Jr, the 2019 HBO APA Visionaries winning film, Halwa, and the 2020 Academy Sponsored Armed with a Camera film Thank You, Come Again which opened for Sound of Metal at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. In 2020 Kelsey directed her first film, Entitled - a story about a woman thrust into the spotlight when the details of her sexual assault go viral. Her directorial debut had its World Premiere at HollyShorts and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best U.S. Narrative Short at DC Shorts in 2021. Kelsey's films have premiered at Austin Film Festival, HollyShorts, Outfest, San Diego International Film Festival, LAAPFF, LA Shorts, Dances With Films, among others and have aired and streamed on HBO.