7 black female directors earning brilliant reviews in Hollywood

Though she didn’t take home the prize, this year Ava DuVernay became the first black woman in history to be nominated for a Golden Globe for best director.

The indie director took a leap into the mainstream after helming Selma, the biopic about Martin Luther King, Jr. If she’s up for an Academy Award, she’ll once again be the first black woman nominated in a best director category.

However, as DuVernay has often said herself, she’s not the first black woman to be deserving of major award nominations. Film history is stamped with talented black women working behind the scenes. Here are just a few of many, many more you should familiarize yourself with.

1. Gina Prince-Bythewood

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  Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood broke into the mainstream after directing the 2000 romantic drama Love and Basketball. She’s directed two more features since then (both of which she wrote herself), including the critically acclaimed 2014 drama Beyond the Lights.

  2. Amma Asante

  

  British director Amma Asante achieved critical success after writing and directing her debut film, A Way of Life, in 2004. In 2013, she directed her sophomore feature, Belle, about a mixed race girl raised in 18th century England. The film was a breakthrough vehicle for star Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who also starred in Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights.

  3. Kasi Lemmons

  

  Another doubled-down writer/director, Kasi Lemmons debuted in Hollywood in 1997 with Eve’s Bayou, a Southern gothic indie, produced by and starring Samuel L. Jackson. The film won her an Independent Spirit Award, putting her on the map as a director to watch.

  Since then, she’s helmed the drama The Caveman’s Valentine, again with Jackson, and Talk to Me, starring Don Cheadle. In 2013, she wrote and directed the star-studded musical Black Nativity. Some of the big names included Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Nas, Jennifer Hudson and more.

  4. Julie Dash

  

  Before 1991, no black female director had ever had a film receive a general theatrical release. Julie Dash changed that. Her debut feature film Daughters of the Dust broke down that barrier in a dramatic fashion, a look at Gullah culture off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Since then, she’s directed numerous TV movies, most noticeably the Emmy-nominated 2002 film The Rosa Parks Story.

  5. Darnell Martin

  

  Darnell Martin has done what precious few mortals have — she’s directed Beyoncé in a film.

  The writer/director first came onto the scene in 1994 with I Like It Like That, a dramatic comedy about a Puerto Rican couple in the Bronx. From there, she found her niche in TV directing, handling episodes of everything from Grey’s Anatomy to Oz to ER. In 2008, she jumped back into film, writing and directing Cadillac Records, a biopic about the rise of record label Chess Records, in which Beyoncé portrays a brassy Etta James.

  6. Dee Rees

  

  Having Spike Lee in your corner can really help a fledgling film director. At 27 years old, Dee Reesenrolled at NYU’s film school where she met the Oscar-winning director and interned on his films. In that time she wrote the short Pariah, which eventually became a feature film in 2011. The film was a critical hit, garnering a fresh 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.

  Next on the young director’s plate is an HBO biopic about Bessie Smith, starring Queen Latifah.

  7. Euzhan Palcy

  

  In 1989, French West Indies director Euzhan Palcy became the first black female director to have a film produced by a major Hollywood studio, MGM. It was A Dry White Season, a heavy political drama about apartheid in South Africa. It starred Donald Sutherland, Susan Sarandon and Marlon Brando (who was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his role). The film is also notable for being the only movie Brando ever did with a female director.

  Prior to that, she won a César award (one of the highest film awards in France) for her 1984 filmRue cases négres (Black Shack Alley).

   

  Source: mashable.com