Naima Ramos-Chapman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Brooklyn, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | director, writer, actress |
| Notable work | And Nothing Happened |
Naima Ramos-Chapman is an American director, writer, and actress. She directed two short films that deal with gender-based violence, And Nothing Happened in 2016, and Piu Piu in 2018. [1] [2]
Ramos-Chapman was raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and is of Puerto Rican and Black descent. [3] [4] She studied dance from childhood and attended The Ailey School (Alvin Ailey). [5] [6] Ramos-Chapman graduated from Brooklyn College. [7]
Her first short film as writer–director, And Nothing Happened (2016), premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival. [8] [9] She financed the film through personal savings and a Kickstarter campaign, while working multiple jobs; the short, in which she also appears on screen, explores the psychological aftermath of sexual assault. [10]
In 2018 she wrote and directed Piu Piu, a short that premiered at the 2018 BlackStar Film Festival. [11] Ramos-Chapman has described the film as drawing on her experience of being stalked in public. [12] The film continued on the festival circuit, and its cinematography (by Shawn Peters) received an award at the Tacoma Film Festival. [13]
Since 2018, Ramos-Chapman has worked on HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness as a writer and director, and has also appeared on screen; she has additionally contributed as an editor on segments of the series. [14] [15] The second season, subtitled Random Acts of Flyness: The Parable of the Pirate and the King, premiered in December 2022 on HBO. [16]
On July 24, 2019, Showtime announced that Ramos-Chapman would direct the comedy anthology pilot How to Make Love to a Black Woman (Who May Be Working Through Some Sh*t), executive produced by Lena Waithe and written by Casallina “Cathy” Kisakye; in February 2020, Showtime confirmed it would not move forward with the pilot. [17] [18]
Beyond narrative shorts and television, Ramos-Chapman co-produced and worked as story editor on HBO’s Betty (2020–2021), and in 2020 wrote and directed the VR work Still Here, produced by Al Jazeera Contrast and premiered in the New Frontier section at the Sundance Film Festival. [19] [20] She was a United States Artists Fellow in 2021. [21] In 2017 she was selected for the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Intensive for her feature script Yeve, or Sad Songs in Languages I Don’t Understand. [22] [23]
She was in a relationship with Terence Nance, whom she met while interviewing him for Saint Heron, the creative agency owned by Solange Knowles. [24]