Director    Producer    Writer    Researcher    Educator

Filmmaker Statement

I am based in Middletown, Connecticut, and though I am interested in many things, I spend much of my time making films. I am drawn to individual stories that reveal the ways that race, gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality work to shape lives and reflect and challenge society’s historical, artistic, political and cultural narratives. My films in the series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?Race: The Power of an Illusion and I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African American Arts serve as early exemplars. In January 2023 Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space, premiered.

With Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, the first feature film about Lorraine Hansberry, I incorporated my 35+-year practice, rooted in discovering, researching and directing new and often unknown stories to advance social justice, build community and empower the marginalized into a documentary described by Robin D. G. Kelley as “a gorgeous visual love letter…in its brilliance, honesty, and vision.” After its premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, the documentary subsequently won several awards including a Peabody and NAACP Image Award for directing.

I make my documentaries through The Film Posse, the production company I co-founded with my partner and colleague Randall MacLowry. My next independent project is Survival Floating, a poetic essay investigating African-descended peoples’ relationships with swimming and water and a documentary about John Henry.

A faculty member at Wesleyan University, I am the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Associate Professor of Film Studies, Associate Director of the College of Film and the Moving Image and Co-Director of the Wesleyan Documentary Project.

Filmography

Documentaries

2023

Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space, American Experience, Director/Writer and Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2021

American Oz American Experience, Producer/Director/Writer with Randall MacLowry, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2019

The Feud, American Experience, Coordinating Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2018

The Swamp, American Experience, Coordinating Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2017

Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, Director/Writer/Producer, Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project, LLC. Broadcast on American Masters 2018 as Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart.

2016

The Battle of Chosin, American Experience, Coordinating Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.
The Mine Wars, American Experience, Coordinating Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2014

The Rise & Fall of Penn Station, American Experience, Coordinating Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2013

Silicon Valley, American Experience, Producer, The Film Posse/GBH, Boston, MA.

2010

Roots of Health, Segment Director/Writer/Co-Producer, The Film Posse for Linda Harrar Productions, Boston, MA.

2008

When the Bough Breaks, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, Director/Co-Producer, The Film Posse for Vital Pictures, Boston, MA.

2005

Building the Alaska Highway, American Experience, Director/Producer, The Film Posse (formerly Diner Media)/GBH, Boston, MA.

2004

ZOOMer Profile: Maya Morales, ZOOM, Director/Producer, The Film Posse (as Diner Media) for Children’s Television, GBH, Boston, MA.

2003

Greater Boston Arts, Director/Writer/Segment Producer, The Film Posse (as Diner Media) for Boston Media Productions, GBH, Boston, MA.
The Story We Tell, Race: The Power of an Illusion, Director/Writer/ Producer, The Film Posse (as Diner Media) for California Newsreel, San Francisco, CA.

2002

Adrift, Producer, Night Train Pictures, Boston, MA.

1999

Bright Like a Sun and The Dream Keepers, I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African American Arts, Director/Writer/Producer, Blackside, Boston, MA.

Museums, Schools and Nonprofits

2018

Inside Sportsmen’s, Producer/Director/Writer, The Film Posse for Sportsmen’s Tennis & Enrichment Center.
Unite-Serve-Lead: The Founding and Impact of the Harvard Business School African American Student Union, Producer/Director/Writer, The Film Posse for Harvard Business School.

2015

Bay State Banner: Unity, Progress and 50-Years of Advocating Change, Producer/Director/Writer, The Film Posse for Banner Publications.

2011

Law and Justice, Writer/Consultant, The Film Posse for Education Development Center.
VA4Life, Director/Co-Writer/Co-Producer, The Film Posse for Boston Arts Academy Foundation.

2007

RACE: Are We So Different?, Director/Writer/Producer, The Film Posse for Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN/American Anthropological Association, Arlington, VA.

2006

Henry Hampton Remembrances, Eyes on the Prize (DVD), Director/Writer/Producer, The Film Posse for PBS Video, Arlington, VA.

2002

Captive Passages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade & the Making of the Americas, Director/Writer/Producer, Northern Light Productions, Inc., Boston, MA/The Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA.

2001

Evolving Ideas: Videos for Students, Director/Writer/Producer, Educational Productions, GBH, Boston, MA.

2000

Thinking Big, Director/Writer/Producer, Educational Productions, GBH.

1996

Call to Lead, Director/Writer/Co-Producer, Northern Light Productions and National Park Service, Harpers Ferry, WV.