A Black woman is now a majority owner of a new multi-million dollar Film/Television studio in Atlanta, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports.
Tammy Williams has over 25 years of experience in the Film/Television industry. She has written and produced a plethora of projects such as films, biographies, documentaries, entertainment, and network news, according to her biography on IMDB.
Williams owned her first digital production company called Tammy’Dele Film in 2016 and is now the first Black woman to own a $135 million studio and post-production facility space in Atlanta, Georgia.
Williams and her business partner Gary Guidry, an investor and CEO of G-Square Events and Black Promoters Collective, founded Cinema South Studios.
“We’ve been patient,” she said. “This has not been an overnight thing, this vision for us,” Williams has worked towards making her dream a reality for 12 years.
They will begin to break ground in March for Cinema South Studios located north of Fayette County.
The studio will occupy 60 acres and intends to have eleven soundstages, a back-lot, a prop house, a wardrobe rental facility, and a lighting grip rental house. The production facility will include a transportation company and an office building to house a theater and post-production facilities, reports AJC.
Williams aims to have two soundstages operable by the first quarter of 2023.
“The demand for soundstages is happening globally, and the ownership rarely looks like us, let alone an African American woman,” said Guidry said in an official release, reports AJC. “When I choose to invest, I evaluate the need of the business and the ownership. Investing in Tammy Williams and her team of professionals convinced me that buying the land in Fayetteville, GA.”
Cinema South will serve as the umbrella for Williams’ production company, Tammy’Dele Films. It will host the education section of Tammy’DeleFilms Workshops and Cinema South Film Academy, where she will conduct job training seminars.
Currently, Tyler Perry Studios in Georgia is the largest film production studio in the United States, and established Perry as the first African-American to outright own a major film production studio.