As part of LGBT+ History Month, this week we are featuring two inspirational #Behindthelens filmmakers.
First up, Yvonne Welbon.
Welbon is an award-winning lesbian American independent film director, producer, and screenwriter based in Chicago.
For over 20 years, she has used her talent for understanding and developing the narrative of Black Lesbians, Black women, and the larger Black community through the medium of film.
She is known for her films, ‘Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100‘ which addressed and explored black lesbian relationships, black lesbian elders, and the reduction of invisibility, ‘Sisters in Cinema’ which served as a seminal documentary, identifying and archiving the powerful and often overlooked contributions of black women feature filmmaker, and recently she has served as a producer on the award-winning documentary, “The New Black”, which was used nationally to help support the passage of marriage equality legislation, particularly in galvanizing African Americans within the LGBT, religious, and broader ally communities.
As with most major media, the presence of black images, within documentaries and feature films, serves as a powerful vehicle for conveying the lived experience. Welbon’s insightful and compelling entry into the independent film industry focuses on those individuals and communities often obscured or at best characterised, changed the landscape and made her a nationally respected documentarian.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Welbon https://chicagolgbthalloffame.org/welbon-yvonne/
Comments