Television programs, and films such as I May Destroy You, Daughters of the Dust, and Middle of Nowhere are a few examples of audio/visual media that have portrayed issues centering Black women in the US and elsewhere.
A few of the first black women filmmakers were Eloyce King Patrick Gist, Zora Neale Hurston, Tressie Souders and Maria P. Williams, and Madame E. Touissant,[6] who produced, directed, or wrote films in the early 1900s.
[citation needed] The accomplishments in film and television that followed in the 1970s widely consisted of a string of Black women directors, such as Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Alile Sharon Larkin, Fronza Woods, and Jacqueline Shearer (Eyes on the Prize).
The Kitchen filmmaker Alile Sharon Larkin visualizes a mental ward as a possible equivalent to prison incarceration for women of color and also Your Children Come Back to You.
In 1991, Julie Dash became the first African-American female filmmaker to have a full-length general theatrical release in the US for her film Daughters of the Dust.
In 2010, DuVernay founded Array, a grassroots distribution, arts, and advocacy collective focused on films by BIPOC and women.
[17] Recently, she created, co-wrote, produced and directed the Netflix drama limited series When They See Us, based on the 1989 Central Park jogger case, which has earned critical acclaim.
In 2017, she was nominated for the Oscar for best documentary feature for her film “13th.”[20] Issa Rae is a writer, director, producer, and actress in the hit HBO television show Insecure.
She started her career as a filmmaker in her dorm room at Stanford University, where she later found the inspiration for the YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.
[21] In 2013, Rae partnered with Pharrell Williams for season 2 of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl on the YouTube channel IamOther.
[22] Issa Rae has partnered with Columbia Pictures to promote real stories via ColorCreative, a mentorship program in Inglewood,Calif.
[23] Mati Diop, a French-Senegalese director was the first black female filmmaker to be included in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival competition, in 2019.
[33] Ava DuVernay's drama “Queen Sugar” continued to fuel a pipeline of female directors of color with its most recent seasons.
She has created complex Black characters who are connected in a variety of ways, through family ties, friendships, oppositions ad social roles.
2021's Candyman opened at the top of the domestic box office, making Nia DaCosta the first Black female filmmaker to have a movie debut in the No.