In honor of Women’s History Month, NYWIFT looks back at some of the remarkable women who have shaped the film, television and digital media industries through the decades.
By Mellini Kantayya
In 2000, writer, director, and past NYWIFT Writers Lab mentor Gina Prince-Bythewood blazed a trail with her film Love and Basketball. Not only was the film a critical and commercial success, it won the Humanitas Prize and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. The film was produced by Spike Lee with a $14 million budget. According to Indiewire, “it was – at the time – one of the largest scale and most high profile projects yet undertaken by a black woman.”
Amongst many other projects, Prince-Bythewood went on to write and direct The Secret Life of Bees.
Love and Basketball was included on the NYWIFT blog’s #SummerHours series celebrating Women in Sports movies and 45th anniversary of Title IX.
Mellini_Kantayya
Related Posts
Trailblazing through the Decades: Cheryl Dunye (1990s)
Twenty years ago a young artist set out to make a documentary about women like herself: black queer filmmakers. She found nothing but homophobia and omission, and then… inspiration. The resulting film The Watermelon Woman marked Cheryl Dunye’s 1996 debut – a hybrid of autobiography, documentary, and comedy. It defies categorization and was the first feature film directed by an African American lesbian.
READ MORETerry’s Picks: Black History, Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon
Black History: The New York Times offers a list of 28 Films for the 28 Days of Black History Month, including our recent Muse honoree...
READ MORETerry’s Picks: Changing Times, Tiffany Haddish, Agnès Varda
Changing Times: Every day brings another story of sexual harassment (and worse) in Hollywood, from Louis C.K., to Kevin Spacey to Supergirl’s Andrew Kreisberg. Kudos...
READ MOREWomen in Film & Television History: Meet Tressie Souders, Director, Producer, Screenwriter
The story of Tressie Souders, or perhaps more accurately, the lack of details about Tressies Souders’ life and work exemplifies the need to research and rescue early film-works of women and women of color.
READ MORE
1 Comment