Yohana Desta

2025 Diverso Fellow
New York University

SOULEYMANE
Logline: When the greatest soccer player in the world decides to represent Mali instead of France in the next World Cup, he compromises his golden boy status and incites a global debate about representation, colonization, and where he truly belongs.

Yohana Desta is an Eritrean- and Ethiopian-American writer and director based in New York City. Her creative practice centers contemporary narratives of the Black diaspora and floats across genres from the hyper naturalistic to the tragicomic. She holds an MFA in writing and directing from New York University’s graduate film program and is currently in post-production on her thesis film: a short odyssey following two strangers across Harlem. 

Desta has directed readings Off-Broadway at the The New Group and associate directed the hybrid stage piece Midnight in Abyssinia at the legendary experimental playhouse, La MaMa. She was a 2024 semi-finalist for The Shed’s Open Call for her play Mouthpiece and was selected as an artist resident at Pocoapoco, a cross-disciplinary arts residency in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Desta is also a longtime journalist, joining Vanity Fair as a staff writer from 2016 to 2023. During her tenure, she authored cover stories on Chadwick Boseman, Kristen Stewart, and Issa Rae, and reported at length about diversity in the film industry. A seasoned moderator, she has led conversations and Q&As on behalf of A24, HBO, SAG, and more.