About
Don “Tex” Phillips
Born in Texas, Don “Tex” Phillips spent his high school playing days in Minnesota before being selected as a McDonalds top 100 high school player, his success as a young star led him to a D1 scholarship at the University of Wyoming. Trials and tribulations led him to Brandon University, where he finished out his playing career and earned his Bachelors and Masters in teaching while getting a taste for the coaching under Jerry Hemmings. His experience as a head coach led him and his family to Edmonton, where he made his mark felt as the head coach of Paul Kane High School and single handedly turned the program into a powerhouse in Alberta. After a 70-6 record at PK, Tex got the call from the NAIT Ooks, and got the chance again to turn around another program, this time in the ACAC at the college level. The job made tex one of the highest paid coaches in the country as NAIT opted to bring in full time head coaches in order to climb the ladder of sports dominance. In his 3 seasons as the NAIT Ooks coach, Coach Phillips led his team to back to back ACAC championships before being let go as head coach. Since then, many teams have replicated Tex’s recruiting style, bringing in players from all over which has changed the makeup of the ACAC significantly. Since then, Tex has taught on an interim basis at the high school level, and started a non-profit basketball club, called Ameba Starr Basketball Association. Tex lives with his wife and 3 daughters in St. Albert, where he continues to be involved in the basketball community through training, teaching and placing student athletes at different schools and professional clubs all over.
Alex Eskandarkhah
Director
Alex Eskandarkhah is an Afro-Iranian writer, director, producer and entrepreneur. Alex was Born in Toronto and relocated to Edmonton, AB to attend college, upon graduation, Alex co-founded The Gifted Gab, a talk show series and media brand as well as the Collective for Black Iranians, a critically conscious initiative intersecting the African and Iranian histories of a group living on the margins of Iranian society. He shot his first short as an installment of the “Voices from Home” series with the Collective and followed it up with his directorial debut “Coaching While Black”. Alex is currently in development with his follow up feature, “Ain’t No Tellin” written and directed by himself.
Kwame Kang
Director of Photography
Kwame Kang, is a cinematographer currently residing in Atlanta GA. Kwame’s professional career started as a creative director for Baden Sports. Creating branded content and commercials for various sports taught him the nuances of shooting, directing, and editing his own content while steadily building a reel of work. Since expanding his work beyond short format sports content, Kwame’s work is geared toward long format work such as film and documentary storytelling.
Warin Era
Producer
Warin Era comes from a diverse background within the arts primarily from the music business. He’s been involved with multiple artists out of Toronto and New York in the music scene before slowly transitioning to film and television productions. Warin worked as the creative director on the Small World program with The Gifted Gab and is also a producer on the 1K Convo series on The Gifted Gab. Warin is currently leading development for a limited music documentary series as well as a television sitcom.
