Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee has won numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Peabody Awards. He has also been honored with an Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2015.
Barry Lee Levinson is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. His best-known works are mid-budget comedy drama and drama films such as Diner (1982), The Natural (1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Bugsy (1991), and Wag the Dog (1997). Levinson won the Academy Award for Best Director for Rain Man (1988). In 2021, he co-executive produced the Hulu miniseries Dopesick and directed the first two episodes.
Street Fight is a 2005 documentary film by Marshall Curry, chronicling the 2002 Newark mayoral election which pitted upstart Cory Booker against the incumbent Sharpe James for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Other credits include Rory Kennedy, Liz Garbus, Mary Manhardt, Marisa Karplus, Catherine Jones, and Adam Etline. Street Fight screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and was later aired on the PBS series P.O.V. on July 5, 2005, and CBC Newsworld in Canada on May 7, 2006. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
4 Little Girls is a 1997 American historical documentary film about the murder of four African-American girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The film was directed by Spike Lee and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Sam Dunn is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, musician, and anthropologist, best known for his series of documentaries on heavy metal music. He co-owns Toronto-based production company Banger Films with Scot McFadyen. Dunn holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Victoria and a master's degree from York University where his thesis work focused on Guatemalan refugees.
Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).
Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, film and television producer. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee of an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011 she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.
George Bowers was an American film director, editor and producer. He had nearly thirty credits as a feature-film editor in a career spanning nearly forty years.
Nick Hector is a British Canadian film producer and editor, and professor of film production at the University of Windsor.
Lucy Mulloy is a screenwriter and film director. She was nominated for the Student Academy Award for her NYU short film "This Morning". In 2010 Mulloy was awarded the Tribeca Film Festival Emerging Narrative Talent Award and in 2012 she won the Tribeca Film Festival as Best New Director. Her debut feature, Una Noche, also won Best Cinematography and Best Actor. She went on to win many awards internationally and Mulloy was nominated for Best New First Feature at the 2014 Spirit Awards.
Thomas McKay Martin Jr., known professionally as T. J. Martin, is an American filmmaker. Martin's film Undefeated (2011), for which he was co-director, co-editor, and co-cinematographer, won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making Martin the first film director of African-American descent to win an Academy Award for a feature-length film.
Michèle Ohayon is a film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for the Academy Award-nominated feature documentary film, Colors Straight Up (1997), Cowboy del Amor (2005), Steal a Pencil for Me (2007) and Cristina (2016).
Margaret Betts is an American filmmaker. Her debut feature Novitiate was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and received a Jury Award for her direction.
Michael Chandler is an American producer, director, writer and editor of feature and documentary films. He produced and directed, with Sheila Canavan, the feature documentary Compared to What? The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank, a Showtime Networks Broadcast Premier and official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival; the PBS Independent Lens feature documentary Knee Deep which one reviewer called, “one of the year's best 'believe it or not' documentaries, a rural Rashomon and a compelling cinematic experience;” and produced & directed Forgotten Fires, a PBS documentary which investigated the burning by Ku Klux Klansmen of Black churches. Bill Moyers said about it: "If we wanted a real dialog about race in America, we'd start with this film." Chandler also produced & directed investigative documentaries for the PBS series Frontline, including Blackout, a collaboration with The New York Times, The Future of War, and Secrets of the SAT.
MLK/FBI is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Sam Pollard, from a screenplay by Benjamin Hedin and Laura Tomaselli. It follows Martin Luther King Jr. as he is investigated and harassed by J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Melissa Haizlip is an American film producer, director and writer most notable for her 2018 award winning film, Mr. SOUL!. Haizlip won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Documentary for Mr. SOUL!.
A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks is a 2021 documentary film that follows the life of the photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks. Its title derives from Parks’ 1967 autobiography. The film features Devin Allen, Jelani Cobb, Anderson Cooper, Ava DuVernay, Nelson George, Jamel Shabazz, Spike Lee, and LaToya Ruby Frazier.
Elizabeth Woodward is an American film producer and founder of WILLA. She has produced On The Divide (2021), You Resemble Me (2021), and Another Body (2023).
Katrina Babies is a 2022 documentary film, directed by Edward Buckles Jr. It explores the narratives of kids who experienced Hurricane Katrina and the impact of the storm’s aftermath on New Orleans youth. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 14, 2022 and was released on HBO Max on August 24, 2022.
Geeta Gandbhir is an American filmmaker known for her work as a director, producer, and editor. She has won multiple awards including Emmy Awards and Peabody Awards.
