The Way Maker’s Work

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The Way Maker’s Work is a documentary portrait of Ẹlẹgba Folklore Society — and its founder and president, Omilade Janine Bell — a Richmond, Virginia institution she has led for over three decades as a global African-centered cultural organization. 

Drawing from archival and original footage spanning 2018 to 2026, the film chronicles the Society’s extraordinary legacy of reframing Virginia’s history through everyday and annual, community-rooted experiences including: cultural history tours along the Trail of Enslaved Africans and other very notable sites, Juneteenth, A Freedom Celebration, the Down Home Family Reunion, A Celebration of African American Folklife, the Capital City Kwanzaa Festival, the Black Book Expo ⦿A Conscious Literary Festival, plus an affirming, expansive performance repertoire, and a collection of material culture that makes Diasporic stories easy to touch.  

At its heart, the film asks a quietly urgent question: What does it truly take to sustain this kind of work for 30+ years — in the former capital of the Confederacy – on limited resources, and with unrelenting love?

Directed and edited by Sionne Neely, viewers are welcomed into the texture of Omilade’s everyday life — quiet moments alone, time with her daughter, granddaughter, and community members — woven alongside festival footage, oral histories, and a visually poetic representation of Èṣù Ẹlẹ́gbára, the Yorùbá Òrìṣà who opens the roads and makes a way for potential and possibility.  The result is a layered, deeply human story about personal devotion, collective memory, cultural stewardship, and the joy that makes it all persistently possible.