The room New York filmmakers have been missing.
A Lower Manhattan storefront where filmmakers can train, work, screen projects, and build paid experience, while teams from other mission-driven nonprofits learn to create stronger media for the communities they serve.
New York filmmakers should not have to build careers from borrowed rooms.
Emerging directors, editors, and producers currently piece together training, mentorship, screenings, and workspace wherever they can find it. The Nukhu Homebase would turn a vacant Lower Manhattan storefront into a dependable place for weekly screenings, open workshops, office hours, production training, and nonprofit media work.
What happens here each week.
The Homebase combines training, production, and exhibition in one dependable room. Filmmakers develop projects and gain practical experience. Teams from nonprofits working in housing, health, human services, workforce development, youth education, and other fields gain the skills and production support to communicate their impact. Selected programs can also reach audiences online.
Filmmaker Development
During the day, working filmmakers can use office hours, one-to-one consulting, and member-supported coworking. Evenings bring hands-on workshops in cinematography, lighting, sound, and editing, along with script reviews, pitch labs, screenings, critiques, and distribution clinics.
Nonprofit Media Impact Lab
The Lab serves nonprofits beyond Nukhu Foundation, including organizations working in housing, health, human services, workforce development, youth education, and other mission-driven fields. Nukhu Foundation provides structured course material and hands-on training so their staff can plan, film, and edit fundraising videos, impact documentation, program footage, and donor communications. Partner organizations can also use the Homebase to produce selected interviews, campaign spots, and program stories with professional support.
Global Film Education Hub
Selected workshops can become course modules, screenings can become online watch-alongs, and craft sessions with working actors, editors, and directors can reach students, film clubs, and audiences beyond the five boroughs.
Canal to Houston.
Broadway to Essex.
Central, culturally active, and reachable after work and after shoots. Distance is the quiet killer of arts programming. This location removes it.
What the room needs to support the work.
A smaller modular room can host programs one at a time. A larger footprint can run programs simultaneously and add a controlled production floor, including a cyclorama studio for filmmaker and nonprofit shoots.
A public program with an earned-income plan.
Grant and sponsorship support can launch the Homebase. Filmmaker memberships, paid course access for other nonprofits, staff training, production packages, and mission-aligned rentals are designed to help carry the operating costs while preserving free and subsidized access.
A piloted lease year that measures attendance, filmmakers trained, nonprofits served, productions completed, and revenue generated. The long-term plan builds on what the pilot proves.
Filmmaker memberships
Daytime coworking, office-hours access, and a reliable professional home for working creators.
Media Impact Lab fees
Paid access to Nukhu Foundation course material, hands-on staff training, and sliding-scale production packages for nonprofits working in housing, health, human services, workforce development, youth education, and other fields.
Studio and room rentals
Mission-aligned rentals during unscheduled hours so the space continues working between programs.
Sponsored access
Donor-supported seats, partner-backed workshops, subsidized training, and free public screenings.
Public and philanthropic support
Arts education, cultural programming, and creative workforce development funding pathways.
Four ways to help open the doors.
The immediate priority is finding and securing the right storefront. Additional partners can help underwrite the programs, equipment, and public access that will make the Homebase useful year round.
Founding Space Partner
A landlord, real estate group, or city program that contributes a donated space, reduced rent, or mission-aligned lease.
Program Sponsor
Underwrite a named workshop series, screening season, filmmaker development program, or the Nonprofit Media Impact Lab.
Equipment & Technology Partner
Provide cameras, lighting, sound, projection, and post-production tools that learners train on and productions use.
Community Partner
Fund donor-supported seats, subsidized nonprofit training, free public screenings, and broader community participation.
Partners receive year-round recognition, measurable impact reporting, program documentation, and a visible presence at a Lower Manhattan cultural address.
Led by filmmakers, producers, and community builders.
Sanjay Singh
President & Director
Filmmaker, producer, editor, curator, and founder of Nukhu, with more than a decade building its festival, platform, support programs, production workflows, and distribution ecosystem.
LaChelle Chrysanne
Treasurer & Director
Producer and creative leader guiding production and program development, with particular insight into the barriers facing women and people of color in creative industries.
Michael “Big Mike” Sangiamo
Secretary & Director
Entertainer, marketing director, and community connector supporting audience engagement, mentorship, and public-facing programs.
An advisory council of leaders in film, fundraising, real estate, cultural affairs, and nonprofit growth is in development to support space identification, funding strategy, and long-term stability.
Help us find and secure the room.
We have the programming calendar, equipment inventory, and audience ready to move in. We are looking for property owners, real estate groups, city programs, and community partners who can help identify the right vacant storefront and create a pathway into it.