Julie Ethel Dash is an American filmmaker, music video and commercial director, author, and website producer. Dash received her MFA in 1985 at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion. The L.A. Rebellion refers to the first African and African-American students who studied film at UCLA. Through their collective efforts, they sought to put an end to the prejudices of Hollywood by creating experimental and unconventional films. The main goal of these films was to create original Black stories and bring them to the main screens. After Dash had written and directed several shorts, her 1991 feature Daughters of the Dust became the first full-length film directed by an African-American woman to obtain general theatrical release in the United States. In 2004, Daughters of the Dust was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Stemming from the film’s success, Dash also released novels of the same title in 1992 and ‘99. This film even inspired Beyoncé, arguably the music industry’s most influential artist, with her 2016 album titled Lemonade.
Cinema of Africa is both the history and present of the making or screening of films on the African continent, and also refers to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture. It dates back to the early 20th century, when film reels were the primary cinematic technology in use. During the colonial era, African life was shown only by the work of white, colonial, Western filmmakers, who depicted Africans in a negative fashion, as exotic "others". As there are more than 50 countries with audiovisual traditions, there is no one single 'African cinema'. Both historically and culturally, there are major regional differences between North African and sub-Saharan cinemas, and between the cinemas of different countries.
Women's cinema primarily describes cinematic works directed by women filmmakers. The works themselves do not have to be stories specifically about women and the target audience can be varied.
Lucrecia Martel is an Argentine film director, screenwriter and producer whose feature films have frequented Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, and many other international film festivals. Film scholar Paul Julian Smith wrote in 2015 that she is "arguably the most critically acclaimed auteur in Spanish-language art cinema outside Latin America" and that her "transnational auteurism and demanding features have earned her a hard-won reputation in the world art cinema festival circuit". Similarly, film scholar Haden Guest has called her "one of the most prodigiously talented filmmakers in contemporary world cinema", and film scholar David Oubiña has called her body of work a "rare perfection". In April 2018, Vogue called her "one of the greatest directors in the world right now".
Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known as the first out black lesbian to ever direct a feature film with her 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. She runs the production company Jingletown Films based in Oakland California.
The Watermelon Woman is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film written, directed, and edited by Cheryl Dunye. It stars Dunye as Cheryl, a young black lesbian working a day job in a video store while trying to make a film about a black actress from the 1930s known for playing the stereotypical "mammy" roles relegated to black actresses during the period.
The cinema of Kenya refers to the film industry of Kenya. Although a very small industry by western comparison, Kenya has produced or been a location for film since the early 1950s when Men Against the Sun was filmed in 1952. Although, in the United States, jungle epics that were set in the country were shot in Hollywood as early as the 1940s.
Wanuri Kahiu is a Kenyan film director, producer, and author. She is considered to be “one of Africa's most aspiring directors, being part of a new, vibrant crop of talents representing contemporary African culture”. She has received several awards and nominations for the films which she directed, including the awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture at the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2009 for her dramatic feature film From a Whisper. She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media collective dedicated to supporting African art for its own sake.
Sarraounia is a 1986 historical drama film written and directed by Med Hondo. It is based on a novel of the same name by Nigerien author Abdoulaye Mamani, who co-wrote the screenplay. The novel and film concern the real-life Battle of Lougou between Azna queen Sarraounia and the advancing French Colonial Forces of the Voulet-Chanoine Mission in 1899. Sarraounia was one of the few African tribal leaders that resisted the advances of French expansionists Paul Voulet and Julien Chanoine. The film won the first prize at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) and was critically well received.
Illusions is a 1982 film written and directed by Julie Dash. The short film depicts the life of an African American woman passing as a white woman working in the film industry during the 1940s. It calls attention to the lack of African Americans in the film industry during that era.
Diandrea Rees is an American screenwriter and director. She is known for her feature films Pariah (2011), Bessie (2015), Mudbound (2017), and The Last Thing He Wanted (2020). Rees has also written and directed episodes for television series including Empire, When We Rise, and Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.
Judy Kibinge is a Kenyan filmmaker, writer and producer. She has produced, written and directed a number of films, best known are Something Necessary (2013), Dangerous Affair (2002), and Project Daddy (2004). She is also known for establishing DocuBox, a documentary film fund for African filmmakers to help them produce and distribute their film. She released her first film, The Aftermath, in 2002 and critics have said that she uses her films to impart stories about Kenya, particularly those about women and others that are typically not told in mainstream Hollywood.
A Different Image is a 1982 film directed, written, and edited by Alile Sharon Larkin that explores body image and societal beauty standards through the eyes of a young Black woman on a journey towards self-worth.
Mya Baker is an American filmmaker, poet, writer, director and researcher. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and has lived and taught early childhood education in Brooklyn, New York.
Jemimah Gecaga (1920–1979) was the first woman to serve in the legislature of Kenya and founder of woman's advocacy organization Maendeleo Ya Wanawake.
Women are involved in the African film industry in a variety of roles, though they have been underrepresented in creative positions.
Saïkati is a 1992 Kenyan film directed by the filmmaker Anne Mungai. It was the first feature film by a Nairobi-based female filmmaker.
Jane Munene-Murago is a Kenyan filmmaker, the first woman to study film in Kenya. Most of her films have been documentaries, produced through her company CineArts, on issues affecting women.
Samantha Mugatsia is a Kenyan actress.
Sheila Munyiva is a Kenyan actress and film director.
