Stories That Stay
Episode 2 - Osahon Tongo
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About Our Guest
Osahon Tongo
Emmy Award-Winning Filmmaker, Writer, & Director
Osahon Tongo is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, writer, and director from Naperville, Illinois. His work spans cinematic storytelling, cultural commentary, and immersive media—always rooted in identity, legacy, and the complexity of the Black experience.
As a director and producer on the Emmy-winning documentary series NFL 360, Tongo has earned 10 Sports Emmy nominations and 2 wins. His standout works include The Indelible Legacy of Jimmy Raye, The Chief Who Walked the Sea (a four-time Emmy-nominated poetic portrait of Jim Brown and Igbo Landing), and The Flyest Ever (on the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen). He’s also created content for the Super Bowl, NFL Combine, Draft, and more.
Tongo was 2nd Unit Director on They Cloned Tyrone (Netflix), directing the now-iconic satirical chicken commercial. A WGA member, he’s written for
BET’s Birth of Cool and co-written features for Rabbit Bandini and Significant Productions. His short films have screened at Cannes, The Getty, and international festivals.
He also served as cinematographer for Question Bridge (Smithsonian) and produced Greenwood Avenue VR for YouTube VR.
A USC MFA alum and former Georgia Tech football player, Tongo is a Ryan Murphy Directing Fellow, Annenberg Fellow, and committed community mentor in Los Angeles.
About Our Hosts
Shamm Petros, Senior Director of Learning & Development at Lion’s Story, brings training grounded in the organization’s 35+ years of racial literacy research and a story-forward approach to racial healing.
Dwight Dunston, a mindfulness practitioner and storyteller, provides the emotional grounding and reflective prompts that model racial stress processing through the body.
Full Episode Transcript
Learn More & Resources
Visit Lion’s Story to explore our mission, training programs, and upcoming events like the
Resilience Literacy Institute.
Osahon’s website: https://www.osahontongo.com/
NFL360 — The Chief Who Walked the Sea: https://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-360-the-chief-who-walked-the-sea
NFL360 — The Flyest Ever: https://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-360-the-flyest-ever
NFL360 — The Indelible Legacy of Jimmy Raye (stream): https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/200001509/s2022-e06-the-indelible-legacy-of-jimmy-raye
They Cloned Tyrone (2nd unit—satirical chicken spot): https://www.osahontongo.com/they-cloned-tyrone
Try box breathing (how-to): https://health.clevelandclinic.org/box-breathing-benefits
Stories That Stay is a project of Lion’s Story, a nonprofit dedicated to building racial literacy through storytelling, mindfulness, and healing.
Rooted in over 35 years of research by Dr. Howard C. Stevenson at the University of Pennsylvania, our work guides individuals and institutions to reclaim their stories, reduce identity-based stress, and step into authentic inclusion—not as a checklist, but as a way of being.
Produced and edited by Peterson Toscano.
Mindful moment music by Dwight Dunston.
Music by Epidemic Sound.
Podcast site: storiesthatstay.net
Hosts: Shamm Petros and Dwight Dunston