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Lorraine Toussaint (;) is a Trinidadian-American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Black Reel Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Carol Denise Betts, known professionally as Niecy Nash, is an American actress, comedian and television host, best known for her performances on television.
Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield is an American actress, director and producer. Richardson is known for her role as Angela in the film A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994) and for her role as Dr. Allison Blake on the Syfy comedy-drama series Eureka (2006–2012).
Aunjanue L. Ellis is an American actress and producer. She began her acting career in theater, and made her film debut in Girls Town (1996). Ellis is best known for her roles in the films Men of Honor (2000), The Caveman's Valentine (2001), Undercover Brother (2002), Ray (2004), The Express: The Ernie Davis Story (2008), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) and The Help (2011). In 2021, Ellis starred in the critically acclaimed film King Richard, which earned her nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, British Academy Film Award, and Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress.
The Good Life Cafe was a health food market and cafe in Los Angeles, California, known for its open mic nights that helped the 1990s Los Angeles alternative hip hop movement flourish. In 2008, director Ava DuVernay, who had performed at the cafe with the Figures of Speech hip hop group, released a documentary about the cafe, This Is The Life. The film featured a number of hip hop artists discussing the importance of the Good Life Cafe to themselves and the hip hop scene. The Cafe was open from 1989 to 1999.
This is the Life is a 2008 documentary film directed by Ava DuVernay, which chronicles the alternative hip hop movement that flourished in 1990s Los Angeles and its legendary center, the Good Life Cafe.
Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, television producer, and film publicist. She won the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere, becoming the first black woman to win the award. For her work on Selma (2014), DuVernay became the first black woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, and also the first black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film 13th (2016).
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.
Aurora Guerrero is a queer-identified, Chicana writer-director from California. Described as activist first and filmmaker second, Guerrero focuses on collaborative work with her communities creating art forms that offer opportunities for dialogue and education.
Middle of Nowhere is a 2012 independent feature film written and directed by Ava DuVernay and starring Emayatzy Corinealdi, David Oyelowo, Omari Hardwick and Lorraine Toussaint. The film was the winner of the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Adepero Oduye is an American actress, director, singer, and writer. She is known for Pariah (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), The Big Short (2015), and Widows (2018).
Jennifer Michelle Lee is an American screenwriter, film director, and chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios. She is best known as the writer and director of Frozen and its sequel Frozen II, the former of which earned her an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Lee is the first female director of a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film and the first female director of a feature film that earned more than $1 billion in gross box office revenue. She has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and an Annie Award, and has been nominated for one more BAFTA Award and two more Annie Awards.
Selma is a 2014 historical drama film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Paul Webb. It is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches initiated and directed by James Bevel and led by Martin Luther King Jr., Hosea Williams, and John Lewis. The film stars actors David Oyelowo as King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Tim Roth as George Wallace, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, and Common as Bevel.
A Wrinkle in Time is a 2018 American science fantasy adventure film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, based on Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel of the same name. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Whitaker Entertainment, the story follows a young girl who, with the help of three astral travelers, sets off on a quest to find her missing father. The film stars Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Storm Reid, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Peña, Zach Galifianakis, and Chris Pine.
Queen Sugar is an American drama television series created and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, with Oprah Winfrey serving as an executive producer. DuVernay also directed the first two episodes. The series is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by American writer Natalie Baszile. Queen Sugar centers on the lives of three siblings in rural Louisiana who must deal with the aftermath of their father's sudden death and decide the fate of his 800-acre sugarcane farm. The mainstream themes in the series often accompany episodes centered on racial profiling, the long reach of chattel slavery in American history and the inequities in the criminal justice system, and other issues related to African Americans.
The Black Reel Award for Outstanding Director is an award presented annually by the Black Reel Awards (BRA). It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry.
13th is a 2016 American documentary film by director Ava DuVernay. The film explores the "intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States;" it is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime.
"Family Feud" is a song by American rapper Jay-Z featuring American singer Beyoncé. It is taken from Jay-Z's thirteenth studio album 4:44 (2017) and was produced by No I.D.. The song was released to British contemporary hit radio on January 26, 2018, as the album's third single.
When They See Us is a 2019 American crime drama television miniseries created, co-written, and directed by Ava DuVernay for Netflix, that premiered in four parts on May 31, 2019. It is based on events of the 1989 Central Park jogger case and explores the lives and families of the five Black and Latino male suspects who were falsely accused then prosecuted on charges related to the rape and assault of a white woman in Central Park, New York City. The series features an ensemble cast, including Jharrel Jerome, Asante Blackk, Jovan Adepo, Michael K. Williams, Logan Marshall-Green, Joshua Jackson, Blair Underwood, Vera Farmiga, John Leguizamo, Felicity Huffman, Niecy Nash, Aunjanue Ellis, Marsha Stephanie Blake, and Kylie Bunbury.
Marsha Stephanie Blake is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Linda McCray in the Netflix miniseries When They See Us, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
References
- ↑ Setaro, Shawn (8 March 2018). "Before She Was Directing Blockbusters, Ava DuVernay Was an 'Excellent' MC". Complex Networks. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ↑ Hardy, Ernest (11 October 2012). "Middle Of Nowhere Director (and Former Rapper) Ava DuVernay on the Future of Black Film". LA Weekly. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
- ↑ McKinney, Jessica (8 March 2018). "Before She Was A Famous Director, Ava DuVernay Used To Rap". Vibe. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
