User:Jbnunner/Black women filmmakers

Black women filmmakers
Black women filmmakers have made notable contributions throughout the history of film. According to Nsenga Burton, writer for The Root, "the film industry remains overwhelmingly white and male. In 2020, 74.6 percent of movie directors of theatrical films were white, showing a small decrease from the previous year. 2020 was also the best year to date in terms of representation of ethnic minorities in film, when 25.4 percent of directors were part of an ethnic minority group. Of the 25.4 percent of black filmmakers a small percentage was female. In other words, while it may be apparent that Black women filmmakers are small in numbers, in fact there are many black woman filmmakers who actively contribute to the film industry. An impressive number of African American moviemakers have created content for them. This creative content is now commanding large audiences and winning awards. Black women filmmakers create mature drama that presents uncensored personalities and real-life situations that used to be outside the limits of acceptable "norms" for a television drama. The individuals in the black women filmmakers films navigate through black world, dealing with the encounters of Black world, dealing with the encounters of Blacks, not limited to their dealings with white people, but in situations in which the larger white-dominated world is always close and constraining. Black women filmmakers have opened new doors, expanded boundaries by embracing their culture and writing about things that make others uncomfortable. The genre or style employed, these films by, for and about black women express the desire to speak the unspeakable about lives of African American women, making things that have been invisible, visible. Black women filmmakers enables viewers to see and feel the difference when a women is behind the camera because they exude their stories through film and they tell a story differently than their male and white counterparts. Since the early 1900's black women have faced many challenges like racism and sexism to trailblaze through the film industry but there's many black women who have paved way for the black filmmakers today. Black women filmmakers are of value in the film industry because they display experiences in their work others can not tell.

Beginning of Women Filmmakers
Many can argue about who was the first black women filmmaker because there were many black women filmmakers, but some did not receive recognition for their work as other black women filmmakers did. Five African-American women filmmakers helped establish the US cinema industry and better the representation of African-Americans on film. A few of the first black women filmmakers were Eloyce King Patrick Gist, Zora Neal Hurston, Tressie Sounders and Maria P. Williams, and Madame E. Touissant. These women named produced, direct ,or wrote films in the early 1900s and were recognized for their contributions which helped the future black women filmmakers trailblaze through the film industry.

1990
Black women have been apart of the film industry since 1920's. Tressie Souders wrote, directed and produced a feature film called A Woman's Error in 1922. Tressie Sounders was one of the first black female filmmaker to be recognized. In the 1990s, black filmmakers started to break through into all-white Hollywood. In the 1990s, black film creators started showing representation in front and behind the camera. In 1991, Julie Dash became the first African-American female filmmaker to have a full-length general theatrical release in the US for her film Daughters of the Dust. The film was recognized in 1999 by the 25th annual Newark Black Film Festival as one of the most important cinematic achievements in black cinema in the 20th century. Daughters of the Dust was placed on the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2004, making it one of 400 other American-made films that are preserved and protected as national treasures. In 1996 Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman became the first film directed and written by a Black lesbian to explore Black lesbianism. Dunye's work has been influential in both Black and LGBTQ filmmaking spheres.

2000
Gina Prince-Bythewood developed her romantic drama Love & Basketball in the 1998 Directors and Screenwriters labs. Gina Prince-Bythewood received an Independent Spirit Award Best Screenplay for the finished film, which was released in 2000. She later returned to Park City to premiere her television drama Shots Fired at the 2016 Festival. Ava DuVernay became the first black female filmmaker to win the Directing Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her film Middle of Nowhere. A trailblazer in telling stories that are socially relevant and providing distribution for stories that feature people of color, she’s the first Black woman to direct a $100-million-dollar studio film, and she has received Academy Award and Emmy Award nominations for her work. In 2010, DuVernay founded ARRAY, a grassroots distribution, arts, and advocacy collective focused on films by BIPOC and women.

2010
Ava DuVernay, a pioneer of black female filmmakers, became the first black woman to win the US Dramatic Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. She received an Oscar nomination for her documentary 13th (2016), and has also made history as the first black woman director to be nominated for a Golden Globe. DuVernay continued her career in filmmaking with A Wrinkle in Time, released in 2018 with an estimated budget surpassing $100 million, making DuVernay the first black female to direct a live-action film with a budget of that size. Recently, she created, co-wrote, produced and directed the Netflix drama limited series When They See Us, based on the 1989 Central Park jogger case, which has earned critical acclaim. The series was nominated for 16 Emmy Awards including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series and won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Limited Series. “Selma” helped Ava DuVernay become the first Black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe for best director and the first Black female director to be nominated for best picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Oscar for best documentary feature for her film “13th.”

Issa Rae, is a writer, director, producer, and actress in the hit HBO Television show Insecure. She started her career as a filmmaker in her dorm room at Stanford University, where she later found the inspiration for the YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. In 2013, Rae partnered with Pharell Williams for season 2 of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl on the YouTube channel IamOther. Since the premiere of Insecure, Issa Rae has received two Golden Globe Nominations for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy as well as a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Issa Rae has partnered with Columbia Pictures to promote real stories via ColorCreative, a mentorship program in Inglewood,Calif.

Mati Diop, a French-Senegalese director was the first black female filmmaker to be included in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival competition, in 2019. Her film Atlantics was up for the Palme d'Or, the top honor of the Cannes competition.

Dream Hampton in 2019 produced Surviving R. Kelly, which received a Peabody Award, an MTV Movie Award for "Best Documentary," and a Rockies Award for "Program of the Year" at the Banff World Media Festival.

Chinonye Chukwu is a Nigerian-American filmmaker that in 2010, directed The Dance Lesson. She produced her first feature film Alaska-Land in 2012. She has written and directed Clemency in 2019, which she received the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at 2019 Sundance for and became the first black woman to win the biggest prize.

Marsai Martin became the youngest and youngest black female to produce a movie at the age of 13. She was the executive producer for the movie Little, and also the youngest to have earned a deal with any film-making studio.

2020
An analysis of top films from 2007 to 2021 shows “real progress behind the camera,” according to the report released Wednesday by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Out of 1,542 directors over that span, just 5.4% were women. Out of the 5.4% of the women in this study 2% were black women this is a small percentage but it is progress for black women filmmakers. Black women took home top prizes at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Regina King's One Night in Miami..., her feature film directorial debut, premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 7, 2020, a first for an African-American female director.

Zora Neale Hurston

 * Zora Neal Hurston Fieldwork Footage(1928)
 * Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina 1940 (1940)

Madeline Anderson
Euzhan Palcy
 * A Tribute to Malcolm X(1967)
 * I Am Somebody(1970)
 * Being Me(1975)
 * Sesame Street(1974-1975)
 * Sugar Cane Alley(1983)
 * Simeon (1995)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (1998)

Debbie Allen

 * Fame (1982-1987)
 * A Different World (1988-1993)
 * The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990)
 * The Sinbad Show (1993-1994)

Cheyrl Dunye

 * The Watermelon Women(1996)
 * Black is Blue(2014)
 * Queen Sugar(2019)

Julie Dash

 * Daughters of the Dust(1991)
 * The Rosa Parks Story(2002)

Kasi Lemmons

 * Eve's Bayou (1997)
 * Harriet(2019)
 * Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madame C.J. Walker (2020)

Mara Brock Akil

 * Moesha (1998-1999)
 * The Jamie Fox Show (1990-2000)
 * Girlfriends(2001-2008)
 * The Game (2006-2015)

Debra Martin Chase

 * Cinderella (1997)
 * The Princess Diaries(2001)
 * The Cheetah Girls (2003)
 * The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005)
 * Just Wright (2010)

Stephanie Allain

 * Biker Boyz(2003)
 * Hustle & Flow(2005)
 * Something New(2006)
 * Dear White People (2017)

Gina Prince-Bythewood

 * Love & Basketball (2000)
 * Daddy's Girl (2007)
 * The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
 * Beyond the Lights(2014)

Dee Rees

 * Pariah(2007)
 * Bessie(2015)
 * Mudbound(2017)

Numa Perrier

 * That Guy(2013)
 * Hello Cupid(2014)
 * Becoming Nia(2014)
 * Jezebel(2019)

Shola Lynch

 * Jazz(2001)
 * Do You Believe in Miracles: The U.S. Hockey Team(2001)
 * Chisolm '72 Unbought & Unbossed(2004)
 * American Gangster (2006-2007)

Victoria Mahoney

 * Yelling to the Sky(2011)
 * Exhale(2012)

Tina Gordon

 * Drumline(2002)
 * ATL(2006)
 * Peeples(2013)
 * Good Girls(2018)

Demane Davis

 * Queen Sugar(2018)
 * Clarice(2021)
 * Naomi(2022)

Shonda Rhimes

 * Bridgerton(2020)


 * Inventing Anna(2022)
 * Greys Anatomy(2005-2022)
 * How to Get Away with Murder(2014-2020)

Issa Rae
Insecure (2016-2020)

The Lovebirds(2020)

The Photograph (2020)

Sweet Life: Los Angeles(2021)

Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay’s drama “Queen Sugar” continued to fuel a pipeline of female directors of color with its most recent seasons. DuVernay last week launched Array Crew, a database of below-the-line talent in a bid to facilitate increased hiring of diverse crew.


 * Selma (2014)
 * Queen Sugar (2016)
 * A Wrinkle In Time (2018)
 * When They See Us (2019)
 * Colin in Black and White (2021)
 * Naomi (2022)

Lena Waithe
Lena Waithe has created a number of successful series. She has created complex Black characters who are connected in a variety of ways, through family ties, friendships, oppositions ad social roles.


 * The Chi (2018-2021)


 * Twenties (2020-2021)


 * Queen & Slim (2019)


 * Boomerang (2020)


 * Them (2021)

Nia DaCosta

 * Little Woods(2018)
 * Ghost Tape (2020)
 * Candyman (2021)

The new "Candyman" opened at the top of the domestic box office this past weekend, making Nia DaCosta the first Black female filmmaker to have a movie debut in the No. 1 slot.


 * The Marvels (2023)