Director · Producer · Writer“and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid so it is better to speak”
- Audre Lorde
STRANGER FRUIT: Black, Jewish
& Arab
In early 2024, the production team at Stranger Fruit Universe and I reached
out to countless public officials, Jewish organizations, and Arab folk to have a conversation nobody else was having around Israel and Palestine — one
where the people at the center were centered. We wanted to build multicultural coalition, dig into the history, and work through the spoken and unspoken tensions between Black, Jewish, and Arab communities. Zohran Mamdani was the only public official to accept. He, along with the other brave souls who participated in our town hall and 1-on-1s, became part of our series on the relationship between these three communities. After we released it, we were shadow banned, accused of antisemitism, and lost opportunities. This is unreleased footage — the beginning of a documentary about the rise and fall of movements, and what it takes to build ones that last.
the comment section
Brooklyn, New York
The Comment Section
A live, recorded panel discussion and town hall on identity, belonging, and political tension across Black, Jewish, and Arab communities.
Ft: Donovan Thompson, Jonathan Randall, Winter, Elizabeth Weisholtz, Dr. Donna Oriowo
April 14th, 2024 for STRANGER FRUIT UNIVERSE
THE NEW ERA: On Power, Attention & Narrative
A West African student sitting in a New York City classroom explains — with startling clarity — how governments move slowly enough that people stop paying attention. How power counts on that. How the ones who keep watching get dismissed as conspiracy theorists. He’s seventeen and describing the spine of Echo Chamber in real time.This conversation was captured within The New Era, a media lab created and directed by Danhy Clermont, where students examine identity, politics, and power through their own lived experience.
DEVISED: The Making of Liberty & Justice
A Caribbean immigrant and a Southern African American migrant find refuge at the White Rose Home for Colored Working Girls and take up the fight for women’s suffrage. This is not distant history — it’s a blueprint.DEVISED documents the making of an original musical and captures the moment ordinary people choose to show up anyway. As contributing editor, I helped shape a film that screened at Signature Theatre and the 2024 IBTF Film Festival — a reminder that backlash, erasure, and resistance are not relics of the past, but forces we are still contending with.
WRITING & editorial
Featured
A reflection on collective transformation, examining power, change, and possibility through a cultural and spiritual lens.
A reflection on communication, disruption, and the value of pause in moments of uncertainty and transition.
A reflection on belief, tradition, and the process of questioning what we inherit in order to define what is truly our own.
A reflection on disruption, truth, and the courage required to embrace change and step into a new direction.
An examination of race as a social construct and its impact on Black and multiracial identity in the United States.
Manuscript Editor. Contributed to the development and refinement of a book on creative career-building and the business of music production.
About
Danhy Clermont
Director, Producer, Writer
Art as Resistance
Danhy Clermont is a Brooklyn-based director, producer, and writer. Her work lives where art meets justice—spanning documentaries, civic media, musical theater, and arts education—all centered on Black and Brown communities and rooted in the belief that art is a sacred tool of truth, connection, and resistance.Spanning a range of urgent social discourse, her civic media work includes "The Relationship Between the Black, Jewish, and Arab Communities," featuring NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and a special on Christian Nationalism with theologian Kristian A. Smith—both produced and edited through Stranger Fruit. Within the documentary space, Danhy served as assistant director for MAD COOL’s chronicle of a charter school principal’s vision and leadership and as contributing editor on DEVISED: The Making of Liberty & Justice—the story of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southern migrants in early 1900s New York—which screened at the International Black Theater Film Festival.Through her virtual musical Now, which she conceived and directed, Danhy gave students a platform to speak directly to the issues shaping their world during an election year. This campaign was later adopted as a fundraising tool by LEAP NYC. Currently, she is in development on Echo Chamber, a documentary exploring the rise and fall of social movements.
Currently in development...
ECHO CHAMBER
A cinematic exploration of how movements ignite, collide with backlash, and reshape political life in the digital age.
Directed by Danhy Clermont
