about
ABOUT
Osahon Tongo is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker from Naperville, Illinois, recognized for his work as a writer, director, and producer. As a director and producer on the acclaimed documentary anthology series NFL360, Tongo has been instrumental in securing 10 Sports Emmy nominations and 2 wins over the past two years. His directed works include The Indelible Legacy of Jimmy Raye (Emmy-winning), The Chief Who Walked The Sea (four-time Emmy-nominated, a mixed-media poetic cinema piece about Jim Brown and Igbo Landing), and The Flyest Ever (a documentary on the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen). He has also directed and produced content for major NFL events, including the Super Bowl, NFL Combine, and NFL Draft, with contributions to Hard Knocks, A Football Life, Peyton’s Places, and Inside the NFL.
Beyond sports, Tongo was the 2nd Unit Director on Netflix’s They Cloned Tyrone, directing the now-iconic satirical chicken commercial scene. He joined the WGA as a staff writer on BET’s Birth Of Cool and has co-written feature films for Rabbit Bandini Productions and Significant Productions. His scripted short films, including Happy Bird and Iman and The Light Warriors, have won awards and screened at Cannes, The Getty Museum, and festivals worldwide.
Tongo’s expertise extends beyond traditional filmmaking into immersive storytelling. He produced Greenwood Avenue VR, a virtual reality project exploring the rise and destruction of Black Wall Street for Google’s YouTube VR180 platform, and served as the cinematographer for Question Bridge, an art installation created by Jesse Williams and Hank Willis Thomas, which premiered at the Smithsonian Museum.
A Ryan Murphy Directing Fellow, Annenberg Fellow, and NFL Films Fellow, Tongo earned his MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and a BS in Management from Georgia Tech, where he played on the 2009 ACC Championship football team. He has lobbied for college athletics policy reform with the National College Players Association and advocated for mental health and wellness. Dedicated to mentorship, he invests in the community through 100 Black Men of LA, Omega Psi Phi, and by coaching at Crenshaw High School and teaching film in East LA through the Youth Cinema Project.
