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Feb 20, 2024 · As awards season gears up, we’re taking a look at the current best Black directors in Hollywood who’ve managed to make history, break records, and define culture with their films.
- Haley Elizabeth Anderson
- Blitz Bazawule
- Radha Blank
- Janicza Bravo
- Stefon Bristol
- Chinonye Chukwu
- JD Dillard
- Rashaad Ernesto Green
- Shaka King
- Julius Onah
Pillars, If There Is A Light (shorts) To find a brand-new voice already so fully formed is rare. While Haley Elizabeth Anderson (above left), a recent graduate of NYU’s Tisch program, first generated waves at Tribeca 2019 – Queen Latifah and Dee Rees singled out her short filmIf There Is a Light there – it was at Sundance 2020 that her coming-of-ag...
94% Black Is King (2020) 100% The Burial of Kojo (2018) (Photo by J. Countess/Getty Images) Before Queen Bey anointed him to direct her visual album Black is King, Ghanaian-born and New York-based hip-hop artist Blitz Bazawule’s spellbinding ghost story The Burial of Kojo caught the eye of in-the-know film fans and critics. Distributed by Ava DuVer...
99% The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) Not since Spike Lee’s similarly shot black-and-white first film, She’s Gotta Have It,has a Black filmmaker’s directorial-writing-starring debut astounded audiences as much as Radha Blank’s The Forty-Year-Old Version. Her sharp, hilarious satire, concerning a once-ascendant Black playwright now shifting gears to...
88% Zola (2020) (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images) Janicza Bravo’s past credits include episodes of the acclaimed TV shows Atlanta and Dear White People, and her offbeat feature debut, Lemon, but it’s the 2020 Sundance favorite Zolathat’s soon to make her a household name. The film is an adaptation of an infamous – and viral – 148-tweet Twitter ...
93% See You Yesterday (2019) (Photo by Cara Howe / © Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection) When Spike Lee produces your film you better deliver. Stefon Bristol, in his ambitious feature debut See You Yesterday, indeed delivered with an ingenious sci-fi time-travel romp that explores police brutality just as nimbly as it plays with theories of rela...
92% Clemency (2019) (Photo by Priscilla Grant/Everett Collection) Though the prison industrial complex adversely affects Black people, it feels like the bulk of prison films – from Kiss of the Spider Woman to Dead Man Walking – feature white protagonists. With her sophomore film, Clemency, Chinonye Chukwu crafted a ruminative character study of pri...
80% Sleight (2016) 93% Sweetheart (2019) (Photo by Leon Bennett/WireImage) JD Dillard is so well-known among cinephiles and genre fans, it’s odd to call him up-and-coming. His subversive first feature Sleight vividly reimagined the superhero genre through the eyes of a Black street magician. His follow-up Sweetheart, a spine-tingling creature featu...
93% Premature (2019) 65% Gun Hill Road (2011) (Photo by Araya Diaz/Getty Images) More than a couple films struggled to break through in the early crazy days of the pandemic: Released in February 2020 on Video On Demand, Rashaad Ernesto Green’s swooning slow-burn summer romance Premature was one of them. This patient love story sees Harlem teen Ayan...
96% Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images) To evoke the words of Black Panther Fred Hampton, one of the central figures of Shaka King’s upcoming Judas and the Black Messiah: this director is a revolutionary. After bouncing from the acclaimed TBS comedy People of Earth to the equally heralded Hulu sitcom Shrill, he...
91% Luce (2019) (Photo by Gary Gershoff/Getty Images) Often when Black filmmakers release a dud, they struggle to find a second chance. Julius Onah bucked that trend. He first directed the critically derided The Cloverfield Paradox, only to follow-up that disaster with the critically heralded Luce. The thought-provoking latter film interrogates rac...
Always a pioneer, Townsend took the helm as President and CEO of Production for The Black Family Channel (BFC) creating and spearheading production for BFC's top rated shows. Where he ran the cable network for four years before it was sold to the Gospel Music Channel in the Spring of 2007.
- Shonda Rhimes. Love her or hate her, Shonda Rhimes has been a staying power in Hollywood for decades. She has created over 7 different television shows, including "Grey’s Anatomy", one of the longest-running shows currently on screen.
- James Lassiter and Will Smith. James Lassiter is Will Smith’s manager, as well as his production partner. Their partnership dates back to the 1980s, where the two attended the same high school together in West Philadelphia but didn’t know each other; Lassiter was a senior and Smith was a freshman.
- Tyler Perry. Tyler Perry’s ascent to the top of the film industry was not an easy one. In his childhood, he dealt with both physical and sexual abuse, leading to suicide attempts.
- Ava DuVernay. Although Ava DuVernay is an A-list producer, she did not pick up a camera until she was 32. DuVernay was first interested in journalism, where she worked with CBS News and helped cover theO.J.
Dec 13, 2022 · Discover Proudly Amplifies Diverse Voices. When thinking about prominent Black directors, talents like Ava DuVernay, Spike Lee, and Jordan Peele tend to be top of mind. But the world of film and TV is teeming with Black producers and directors that are helping to mold American cinema as we speak.
Feb 1, 2023 · They are directors, writers, producers, filmmakers and executives who break barriers and make waves in male-dominated industries. Get to know these Black, female-identifying filmmakers and we...
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Oct 24, 2018 · Here is the list of established black producers who are killing it at the box office and some newer faces of Hollywood making great inroads.
