Charise M. Studesville hustled her way into the entertainment business via an internship with Debra Martin Chase, commuting weekly between Chicago and LA.

Charise then landed in a Warner Brothers/USC directing and producing program, and convinced a band of USC Film School grad students to crew her first film, culminating in a 60+ international film festival tour, winning awards along the way.

Since then, Charise founded Hollywood Chick Mafia, a community of creative rebel chicks in Hollywood, supporting each others' badassery, became a USA Today bestselling author, was chosen as a 2022 WIF Multi-Hyphenate Mentee, and was honored as a featured artist in Kente Royal Gallery’s Black History Month 2023 art show in Harlem. Charise’s experimental short film Return Of Alice was honored by the Toronto International Women’s Film Festival. And she has also been chosen as a Fellow in the 2024 Stowe Narrative Fellowship for her feature film, The Waves.

In all of her creative work, Charise uses truth to illuminate darkness within the human experience. Inspired by her own early life adversity and bereavements, she’s reshaped personal awareness into being a loss doula creatively, with a innate ability to create stories and characters that speak to the human capacity to rise above the murkiest of waters in life without losing sight of the beauty that can bloom—like her lotus flower logo of Lotus Girl Films.
As a fierce advocate for women, Charise is a proud member of WIF, Film Fatales, Women In Media, and Alliance of Women Directors. And she is also the proud mother of four amazing adult humans.