Paul Grant

Founder, Chief Programming Officer

Email: paul@southeastcinemadc.org

Paul Grant is a filmmaker, Oral Historian, and Chief Creative Officer at Ascender Communications, Inc. a full-service digital advertising and media production company, based in Washington, DC. He has over 20 years of professional experience producing award-winning advertising and public health campaign messages for non-profit advocacy groups, businesses, and many federal agencies, including Xfinity, Lilly, Diageo, Smithsonian American History Museum, Black & Missing Foundation, U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Education, U.S. Department of Housing (HUD), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He also produces interactive content, oral histories and factual/exploratory documentaries for museum exhibitions and broadcast media.

He is currently producing THE EAST OF RIVER SERIES, a three-part series of oral history project and documentary film series about generational changes within predominately African American communities located East of the Anacostia River in Southeast and Northeast, Washington, DC. The first two parts of the project, ‘WE ARE PENN BRANCH’ and ‘SEVEN RISING: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE 2024 WARD 7 D.C. COUNCIL PRIMARY’ has received funding from Humanities DC and DC Commission of Arts and Humanities (DCAH). 

He has been the president of Penn Branch Community Association since 2022.