Biography
Cliff Divine is a French-born American actor, filmmaker, performer, and movement founder whose work lives at the intersection of cinema, storytelling, and social impact.
A French-American storyteller, Cliff’s creative vision fuses performance with purpose. Raised in a multicultural household by a Spanish mother and a Caribbean father, he developed an early awareness of identity, belonging, and resilience. His journey from suburban Paris to Los Angeles expanded his artistic language and deepened his lifelong commitment to human connection.
Cliff first gained public recognition as the founder of the #Connect Peace Movement, a grassroots movement built around a simple physical gesture and the sound “Mm-Hmm,” created to bring people together across difference. The movement traveled through all 50 U.S. states and received national media coverage on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and KTLA. In 2024, Cliff evolved this work into Reconnect, a global nonprofit love movement he now solely leads, dedicated to spreading Laughter, Oneness, and Love through storytelling and shared human experience.
As a filmmaker and actor, Cliff has demonstrated a rare versatility. His lead role in Samir (2014) earned the Public Prize at the Generation Court Festival, presided over by Luc Besson. His performance as Mo in Kids With Guns (2019) received an Honorary Mention for Best Actor at the South Film & Arts Academy Festival. He trained in screenwriting, directing, producing, and editing at the International Film School of Paris (EICAR), and later refined his acting craft at Acting International and under Method Acting pioneer Jack Garfein in Los Angeles.
In 2023, Cliff founded Memory Studios, a Los Angeles–based production company credited with more than 80 projects across film, music, fashion, and digital media. His short films have screened at the Cannes Short Film Corner, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Nikon Festival, and Saint-Maur Festival, with multiple works broadcast internationally on TV5 Monde. His short film The Gentlemen’s Castle was entered into the archives of the Paris Museum of Immigration as the first film in France to spotlight the Congolese African cultural and fashion movement of Sapologie.
Cliff’s storytelling is influenced by narrative thinkers such as Robert McKee, John Truby, and Joseph Campbell, and shaped by mentorship from Academy Award–honored filmmaker Euzhan Palcy. In 2022, he co-wrote Palcy’s Governors Awards acceptance speech, during which she and Viola Davis publicly honored his peace work and performed his signature “Mm-Hmm” gesture on stage.
Beyond film, Cliff is a dynamic live performer. His stand-up comedy blends surrealism, satire, and emotional truth, while his musical projects, created in collaboration with French composer Franck Rapp, fuse movement, melody, and global unity. He trained in dance at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy and in vocal performance, integrating rhythm, movement, and music into his multidisciplinary storytelling.
Today, Cliff Divine stands at the crossroads of art and activism, part filmmaker, part performer, part global catalyst.
His mission is clear: to tell stories that heal, to move hearts, and to reconnect the world through storytelling and creativity and using human touch as a powerful tool to spread laughter, oneness, and love.
