Chanelle Aponte Pearson

Last updated
Chanelle Aponte Pearson
Born
Bronx, New York, New York
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Writer, producer director
Notable work195 Lewis

Chanelle Aponte Pearson is an American writer, producer, and director. She is a member of the New Negress Film Society. She is best known as the director of 195 Lewis , a scripted web series about Black queer women living in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. The series won the 2017 US Narrative Audience Award at the BlackStar Film Festival and received a Special Mention at 2017 Outfest. [1] [2]

Contents

Career

Pearson began producing short films independently in the early aughts. [3] Her first job on a feature film was as co-producer for Terence Nance's 2012 film An Oversimplification of Her Beauty . [4] Pearson is currently the COO of Nance's production company, MVMT. [2] [5]

In 2015, Pearson won a grant from the Gotham Awards for her directorial debut, a web series called 195 Lewis. [1] [6] 195 Lewis is a scripted series that centers four Black queer women who live in Bed Stuy, and stars co-creator Rae Leone Allen, Trae Harris, D. Ajane Carlton, Sirita Wright, Roxie Johnson, and Taja Lindley. [7] It debuted online on November 16, 2017. [8] Latonya Pennington of Wear Your Voice magazine wrote in a review, "Whether in themselves or others, Black queer viewers will recognize the characters and love them. Through the efforts of the creators, director, and the cast, 195 Lewis tells a wonderful coming-of-age story of love, lust, and life in one of America’s blackest and queerest cities." [9] It received a Special Mention at 2017 Outfest for "highlighting the contemporary life of queer black woman with flair, vibrancy and substance.” [10]

Pearson is an executive producer for the 2018 HBO series Random Acts of Flyness . [11] She is a member of the New Negress Film Society, a collective of Black women filmmakers founded in 2013 to "create community and spaces for support, exhibition, and consciousness-raising". [12] [13]

Personal life

Pearson identifies as queer. [2] She was born and raised in the Bronx. [5]

Accolades

Filmography

YearTitleCredited asNotes
Director Writer Producer
2012 An Oversimplification of Her Beauty NoNoYes
2017 195 Lewis YesYesExecutiveWeb series
2018 Random Acts of Flyness NoNoExecutive

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gotham Awards</span> Independent film and series awards

The Gotham Awards are American film awards, presented annually to the makers of independent films at a ceremony in New York City, the city first nicknamed "Gotham" by native son Washington Irving, in an issue of Salmagundi, published on November 11, 1807. Part of the Gotham Film & Media Institute, "the largest membership organization in the United States dedicated to independent film", the awards were inaugurated in 1991 as a means of showcasing and honoring films made primarily in the northeastern region of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Schamus</span> American filmmaker (born 1959)

James Allan Schamus is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and the co-founder and former CEO of motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal. He is currently president of the New York–based production company Symbolic Exchange, and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989.

Angela Robinson is an American film and television director, screenwriter and producer. Outfest Fusion LGBTQ People of Color Film Festival awarded Robinson with the Fusion Achievement Award in 2013 for her contribution to LGBTQ+ media visibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenni Olson</span> American filmmaker

Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.

Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sridhar Rangayan</span> Indian filmmaker (born 1962)

Sridhar Rangayan is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror, Yours Emotionally, 68 Pages, Purple Skies, Breaking Free & Evening Shadows have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community. His film The Pink Mirror remains banned in India by the Indian Censor Board because of its homosexual content.

The Iris Prize, established in 2007 by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBTQ film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex audiences and which must have been completed within two years of the prize deadline.

Aerlyn Weissman is a two-time Genie Award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and political activist on behalf of the lesbian community.

<i>An Oversimplification of Her Beauty</i> 2012 American film

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is a 2012 American semi-animated romantic comedy-drama film, directed by Terence Nance in his feature directorial debut. The film follows a quixotic artist who, when stood up by an attractive woman, makes a film about it and shows it to her. The film was adapted from Nance's 2006 short film, How Would You Feel?. It premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and has received generally positive reviews from critics.

Sydney Freeland is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the short film Hoverboard (2012) and the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017.

The 25th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, presented by the Independent Filmmaker Project, were held on November 30, 2015. The nominees were announced on October 22, 2015. The ceremony was hosted by Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fawzia Mirza</span> Canadian actor and filmmaker

Fawzia Mirza is a Canadian film and TV actress, writer, producer, and director. Her work includes web series Kam Kardashian and Brown Girl Problems, and the 2017 film Signature Move.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivian Kleiman</span> American documentary film producer

Vivian Kleiman is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Other honors include a National Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Research and an Academy Award nomination for Documentary Short.

C. Fitz is an advertising, marketing and filmmaking professional. In her digital work she has produced social media branding campaigns winning four Webby’s for creative content. As a filmmaker, TV showrunner and film director she has won multiple awards for her scripted and unscripted work. She is also an activist and speaker.

<i>Suicide Kale</i> 2016 film by Carly Usdin

Suicide Kale is a 2016 American dark comedy film, directed by Carly Usdin and written by Brittani Nichols. The film centers on Jasmine and Penn, a lesbian couple who unexpectedly find a hidden suicide note in the home of their friends Billie and Jordan. The film premiered at the Queer Hippo International LGBT Film Festival in Houston, Texas on April 3, 2016. Usdin won the Audience Award for Best First U.S. Dramatic Feature at 2016 Outfest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrie Hawks</span> American director and animator

Carrie Hawks is a gender non-conforming director and animator. They are known for their work on Black Enuf.

Ryann Holmes is an American consultant and the co-founder of bklyn boihood, a collective that empowers "masculine of center bois, lesbians, queers, trans-identified studs, doms, butches and AGs of color." Holmes' work has been recognized by Brooklyn Magazine, the Brooklyn Community Pride Center, and in a short documentary film, Portrait of Ryann Holmes.

<i>Straight Up</i> (2019 film) 2019 US film by James Sweeney

Straight Up is a 2019 independent film written, produced, and directed by James Sweeney. Sweeney stars in the film with Katie Findlay, Dana Drori, James Scully, Tracie Thoms, Betsy Brandt, and Randall Park. The film premiered July 23, 2019 at Outfest, with limited distribution by Strand Releasing beginning February 28, 2020.

<i>195 Lewis</i> American web series

195 Lewis is an American comedy-drama web series created by Rae Leone Allen and Yaani Supreme, and co-written with Terence Nance and director Chanelle Aponte Pearson. It follows several Black queer women living in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy). The series was released online on its website, One Nine Five Lewis, on November 16, 2017. It received the 2018 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series and a Special Mention at Outfest 2017.

Kumi James is an American multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, DJ, radio host and music producer who performs under the stage name BAE-BAE.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Director Of '195 Lewis' Tells Us Why It's 'Paramount We Tell Our Own Stories'". www.intomore.com. 27 October 2017. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  2. 1 2 3 "Award-winning Series Premiere: 195 Lewis". www.curvemag.com. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  3. ↑ Mullins, Carrie V. (2017-02-16). "Chanelle Aponte Pearson on Filming Cinematic Web Series & Exploring Messiness on Screen" . Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  4. ↑ "Chanelle Aponte Pearson". Tribeca Film Institute. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  5. 1 2 Macaulay, Scott (26 April 2016). "Five Questions for 195 Lewis Director Chanelle Aponte Pearson". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  6. ↑ "Tangerine, Jonas Carpignano, Chanelle Aponte Pearson Are 25th Gotham Awards Winners". shadowandact.com. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  7. ↑ "10 Black Directors to Watch in 2016". pastemagazine.com. 28 January 2016. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  8. ↑ Rao, Sameer (2017-11-17). "A Black Queer Couple Candidly Explores Polyamory in '195 Lewis'". Colorlines. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  9. ↑ "'195 Lewis' Is Black Lesbian Perfection". Wear Your Voice. 2017-11-14. Archived from the original on 2019-07-19. Retrieved 2019-07-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  10. ↑ Dry, Jude (2017-07-20). "Chanelle Aponte Pearson's Dazzling Ode to Black Lesbian Love Is the Next Great Queer Project of 2017". IndieWire. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  11. ↑ Otterson, Joe (2018-08-20). "'Random Acts of Flyness' Renewed for Season 2 at HBO". Variety. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  12. ↑ Lapin, Andrew (2017-03-24). "Why Sundance, SXSW, and Funders Are Falling in Love With This Tiny Collective of Black Women Filmmakers". IndieWire. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  13. ↑ "The New Negress Film Society's Inaugural Black Women's Film Conference at MOMA PS1 a SOLD OUT success!". Los Angeles Sentinel. 2019-04-04. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  14. ↑ "The Winners of the 2018 Gotham Awards". www.vulture.com. 26 November 2018. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.