Kali Onaje Ray was born July 9, 1972, in San Francisco. His mother lived in the Fillmore district, and Ray split time between her home and the San Mateo home where his father, Walter Ray, lived.

He attended Serra High School; after three years, he transferred to San Mateo High for his senior year, graduating in 1990.

In high school, he became a graffiti artist who used the tag “O’Ray.” His stepmother, Patricia Olivia Ray, was known throughout San Mateo as “the world’s greatest cook,” according to younger brother Kwasi Ray.

Using the kitchen of their church, Pilgrim Baptist, she ran a business called Catering by Patricia, and the brothers worked for her on weekends and after school, cooking, serving and washing dishes. Also pitching in was their best friend, Jason Wilson. When they weren’t working as caterers, they sang in the church choir and performed in seasonal Christian plays.

“We were the Three Musketeers,” said Wilson, who now lives in Ione (Amador County). “We had no fear of anything when we were together.”

The Musketeers were only broken up by going to college. After what Wilson described as “an endless summer,” Ray finally went to Clark University in Atlanta, where he studied communications. He stayed in Atlanta and was building a career as a graphic and web design artist at the same time that his mother was building a film distribution company in San Francisco.

“Kali was at the heart of Black filmmaking in San Francisco,” said Jackie Wright, the festival’s publicist and a friend. “He was a bearer of light and took seriously the responsibility of bringing people from all races together to examine the positive stories about the worldwide African diaspora.”

That sense of responsibility derived from his mother, Ave Maria Montague, who founded the San Francisco Black Film Festival in 1998 to establish a platform for emerging independent filmmakers to share the African experience globally. A Fillmore community leader, Montague died in January 2009 after completing a radio project on the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Ray immediately took over the festival, ran it for 10 years and increased its profile by bringing in actors and directors like Danny Glover and Robert Townsend to help promote it.

“Kali picked up the mantle to carry on with his mom’s legacy,” said Mayor London Breed in a video statement posted to the SFBFF web site. “I am so grateful to have known and worked with Kali and will always remember him as a thoughtful and caring man.”