Yvonne Welbon is an American

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

film director, producer, and screenwriter based in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. She is known for her films, ''Living with Pride:Ruth C. Ellis @ 100'' (1999), ''Sisters in Cinema'' (2003), and ''Monique'' (1992)''.

Work

Welbon attended the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

for the MFA program in film and video and

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

for a Ph.D, in Radio, TV, and Film. Welbon has directed nine films and produced fifteen others. Her work has been screened on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

, Starz/Encore, TV-ONE, IFC,

Bravo Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Groups and labels *Bravo (band), a Russian rock band * Bravo (Spanish group), represented Spain at Eurovision 1984 *Bravo Music, an American concert band music publishing company ...

BET Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...

, the

Sundance Channel Sundance Channel can refer to: * Sundance TV, formerly known as Sundance Channel (United States). * Sundance Channel (Canada) * Sundance Channel (Netherlands) * Sundance Channel (Europe) * Sundance Channel (Iberia) * Sundance Channel (Asia) Sundanc ...

and in the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

, the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

, the

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

, and over one hundred other film festivals around the world. ''Living with Pride:Ruth C. Ellis @ 100'' won ten best documentary awards, including the

GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals ...

Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. Her ongoing Sundance Documentary Fellowship project is ''

Sisters in Cinema A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

'', a documentary, website, and forthcoming book based on her doctoral dissertation about the history of African American women feature film directors and the personal struggles they face within the industry based on their identities. She is also working on a web based online community project, ''Sisters in the Life: 25 Years of Out African American Lesbian Media-making (1986-2011)'', which includes a collection of essays, a documentary, an archive, and a mobile app. Welbon's producer credits include: John Pierson's ''

Split Screen Split screen may refer to: * Split screen (computing), dividing graphics into adjacent parts * Split screen (video production), the visible division of the screen * ''Split Screen'' (TV series), 1997–2001 * Split-Screen Level, a bug in the vid ...

'',

Zeinabu Irene Davis Zeinabu irene Davis (born April 13, 1961) is an American filmmaker and professor in the Department of Communication

' ''Mother of the River'' and her Sundance dramatic competition feature '' Compensation'',

Cheryl Dunye Cheryl Dunye (; born May 13, 1966) is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known ...

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

film ''

Stranger Inside ''Stranger Inside'' is a made-for-television crime drama film directed by Cheryl Dunye that premiered on cable television in 2001. The story primarily concerns African-American lesbians in prison. Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., helped ...

'',

Thomas Allen Harris Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hie ...

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

award-winning documentary ''É Minha Cara'' (''That's My Face''), Liz Miller's ''The Water Front'', Alex Juhasz's ''Scale'', Andrew Nisker's ''GERBAGE! The Revolution Starts at Home'', and

Catherine Crouch Catherine Crouch is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer, producer, cinematographer, and actor. She has been active in independent film-making for over two decades. Most of her work explores gender, race (human categorization) ...

's ''One Small Step'' and ''Stray Dogs''.

Biography

Having grown up as the daughter of a Chicago police officer, Welbon received an undergraduate degree in History from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

. Thereafter, she spent six years in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, where she taught English, learned

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

at the age of 23, and founded and published an alternative arts magazine. She ran the magazine for a total of five years. After her return to the United States, Welbon completed a

Masters of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree with the

and later received her PhD from

in 2001. She also graduated from the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

's,

Directing Workshop for Women The AFI Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) is an innovative program in the American Film Institute (AFI) that has been offering free training workshops and the opportunity to direct short films that has helped to launch several successful careers. T ...

. Welbon is associate professor and department chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at

Bennett College for Women Bennett College is a private historically black liberal arts college for women in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was founded in 1873 as a normal school to educate freedmen and train both men and women as teachers. Originally coed, in 1926 it ...

, an

HBCU Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the Un ...

. Welbon has also been a visiting scholar at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

(2013-2014), and is working on a project to curate her "Sisters in Cinema" archive to allow it to become a resource for academic use. Currently Welbon is the Interim Creative Director of Chicken and Egg Pictures and has produced a documentary, ''The New Black'', by

Yoruba Richen Yoruba Richen (born 1972, in New York City, New York) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Her work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, New York Magazine’s website -The Cut, The Atlantic and ...

. She also has begun a web based community called Sisters in the Life: 25 Years of Out African American Lesbian Media-making (1986-2011).

Filmography

Director

*''Monique (film)'' (1992) *'' The Cinematic Jazz of Julie Dash'' (1992) *'' Sisters in the Life: First Love'' (1993) *'' Missing Relations'' (1994) *'' Remembering Wei-Yi Fang, Remembering Myself'' (1996) *''

'' (TV series, 1997) *'' Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100'' (1999) *'' The Taste of Dirt'' (2003) *''

'' (2003)

Producer

*''Monique'' (1992) *'' Mother of the River'' (short, associate producer, 1995) *'' Remembering Wei-Yi Fang, Remembering Myself'' (1996) *''Compensation'' (associate producer, 1999) *'' One Small Step'' (1999) *'' Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100'' (1999) *''

'' (TV Movie, associate producer, 2001) *'' That's My Face'' (co-producer, 2001) *''

Stray Dogs A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 900 million, of w ...

'' (2002) *''

'' (2003) *''The Water Front'' (2007) *''Scale: Measuring Might in the Media Age'' (2007) *''Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home'' (2007) *
The New Black
' (2013)

References

External links

* *
Yvonne Welbon
at Chicken & Egg Pictures {{DEFAULTSORT:Welbon, Yvonne Living people American film directors American film producers American screenwriters American women film directors American women film producers American women screenwriters African-American film directors African-American film producers American lesbian artists LGBT film directors LGBT film producers American LGBT screenwriters Screenwriters from North Carolina AFI Conservatory alumni Northwestern University alumni School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Vassar College alumni Bennett College faculty American women academics 21st-century African-American people 1967 births 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women

Work

Biography

Filmography

Director

Producer

See also

References

Further reading

External links