Michèle Stephenson Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Michèle Stephenson
Directing
Biography
Michèle Stephenson is an American documentary filmmaker, artist, and author who pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots, and experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling, deeply personal stories that are created by, for, and about communities of color. With spouse Joe Brewster, Stephenson founded the Rada Film Group. While raising a family in Brooklyn, New York, they directed and produced documentary and fiction films. In 2008, they directed Slaying Goliath, a documentary that follows 10 days in the life of their son's fifth grade basketball team in Harlem, New York, as they experienced a culture clash at a national tournament in suburban Florida. Brewster and Stephenson also produced and directed Faces of Change, which follows five activists on five continents fighting racism in their communities. In 1999, Brewster and Stephenson set out to document the experiences of their son and his best friend at the time both boys entered kindergarten at a private Manhattan prep school up until their upcoming high school graduation in 2012 in the documentary film, American Promise. Their goal was to closely examine the coming of age and school experiences of two middle class African American boys at The Dalton School, a predominantly white prep school, in the context of the persistent U.S. achievement gap. American Promise was broadcast on POV in 2013. Brewster and Stephenson are Sundance Institute Fellows, Tribeca All Access Fellows, and the recipients of the Tribeca Gucci Fund for Documentary Film for the 13-year longitudinal documentary. American Promise is the centerpiece of a transmedia engagement campaign that will use the mobile web and interactive technology to help propel young men of color to success.
Filmography Movies
Acting
American Promise
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was committing to diversify its student body. Their cameras continued to follow both families for another 12 years as the paths of the two boys diverged—one continued private school while the other pursued a very different route through the public education system.
Subject
In the golden age of documentaries, who benefits? SUBJECT reveals the unintended consequences – good, bad, and complicated – of having your life shared on screen. Featuring the protagonists of acclaimed documentaries The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, The Wolfpack, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Square, as well as the filmmakers of Minding the Gap, Cameraperson, An Inconvenient Truth, and more.
Production
Elena
In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army, on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013, the Dominican Republic's Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Elena, the young protagonist of the film, and her family stand to lose their legal residency in the Dominican Republic if they don't manage to get their documents in time. Negotiating a mountain of opaque bureaucratic processes and a racist, hostile society around, Elena becomes the face of the struggle to remain in a country built on the labor of her father and forefathers.
American Promise
In 1999, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson turned the camera on themselves and began filming their five-year-old son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, as they started kindergarten at the prestigious Dalton School just as the private institution was committing to diversify its student body. Their cameras continued to follow both families for another 12 years as the paths of the two boys diverged—one continued private school while the other pursued a very different route through the public education system.
For Our Girls
Black women have played critical roles in all areas of the social justice movement but are often denied the platform they deserve. For Our Girls is a remix of the 2015 New York Times Op-Doc“ A CONVERSATION WITH BLACK WOMEN ON RACE.” It explores the stigmas Black girls face as they grow up within and outside their community. Working with the original interviews and reflections in 2020, mothers share their concerns with how they are shaping and impacting their daughters’ independence. The film is a love letter to Black daughter.
The Killing Zone
Killing Zone is the story of an affluent Harlem psychiatrist living an unexamined life until his adoptive father- a doctor who plucked him from a Nigerian refugee camp as a child - is gunned down by an eleven-year-old in Brooklyn. In an instant, everything he's absorbed in twent years in America is thrown into question, and his search for the boy resurrects memories of his own buried past.
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary queer poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy.
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary queer poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy.
A Conversation with White People on Race
This short documentary features interviews with white people on the challenges of talking about race.
Slaying Goliath
SLAYING GOLIATH takes an unprecedented intimate look at the world of amateur youth basketball through the eyes of the New York Select Huskies team as they seek to win the AAU National Basketball Championship. The grueling price the team must pay to win exposes the hidden dark side of amateur sports.
Coming Home: The Dry Storm
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina the New Orleans City Council decides to demolish public housing leaving thousands of people without homes. Staging a courageous battle that reminds us of how much home means to us all, residents became activists, attracting the attention of international human rights monitors and taking their cause to the highest levels of HUD (Housing and Urban Development Agency) in Washington DC.
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