Roger Ross Williams
Williams in 2016
Born (1962-09-16) September 16, 1962
Easton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation(s)Film director
Screenwriter
Film producer
Years active1995–present

Roger Ross Williams (born September 16, 1962) is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar), with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.

Life and career

Williams is a member of a Gullah family from South Carolina, and has lived and worked in New York City for over twenty-five years. Williams attended Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and New York University in New York City.

Williams began his career in 1985, producing political satire for Comedy Central and Michael Moore's Emmy Award-winning series TV Nation. He has since produced and directed for NBC News, MSNBC, BBC, CNN and has produced work for Comedy Central, Food Network, TLC, VH1, including numerous primetime specials for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and ABC News, CBS, Sundance Channel and New York Times Television. He has also produced a documentary series for Discovery Networks and a lifestyle series, Sheila Bridges Designer Living, for Scripps Networks. He has won numerous awards for his TV work including a NAMIC Vision Award and the National Headliner for Best Human Interest Feature documentary.

Williams has directed a number of films including Life, Animated, which won the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film[1] and won three Emmy Awards in 2018, including the award for Best Documentary. The film God Loves Uganda that he directed, which was shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film and American Jail, examined the U.S. prison system and premiered on CNN and the BBC. Williams directed Traveling While Black, a virtual reality documentary / transmedia project made for Facebook's Oculus, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019.[2] His 2019 film The Apollo, a documentary about Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater, was the opening night film of the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

His first narrative feature film for Amazon Studios is in pre-production. His production company, One Story Up, which he founded with Geoff Martz,[3] is producing a variety of projects including documentary series for Netflix.

The documentary film Master of Light, directed by Rosa Ruth Boesten and produced by Ilja Roomans, Anousha Nzume and Williams, was played at the music and film festival South by Southwest (SXSW) in March 2022.[4] It is a production of One Story Up and the Dutch documentary collective 'Docmakers'.[5] It is a film about the artist George Anthony Morton.[6][7] The film was included in HBO Max that same year.

Williams is the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar) with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.

Williams serves on the board of Docubox Kenya, a documentary fund and mentorship program based in Nairobi that supports African filmmakers. Williams serves on the alumni advisor board of None On Record, the alumni advisory board of the Sundance Institute, and, since 2016, the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, serving as chair of the Documentary Branch and the Documentary Diversity Committee He is also a trustee of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, the first major museum in Africa dedicated to contemporary art.[8] Furthermore, he is a member of the Advisory Board of Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and of the board of the Tribeca Film Institute.

He splits his time between upstate New York and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Filmography

Director

  • 1997: Discovered At Sundance (TV)
  • 2000: Reagan: A Life In Pictures (TV)
  • 2001: Time (TV)
  • 2001: Challenge America With Erin Brockovich (TV)
  • 2002: Secret Son (TV)
  • 2003: Power, Privilege & Justice (TV)
  • 2003: Boys Will Be Girls (TV)
  • 2003: First Off The Tee (TV)
  • 2003: New York Underground (TV)
  • 2004: The Lives They Lived (TV)
  • 2004: Moroccan Style (TV)
  • 2005: Sheila Bridges Designer Living: Morocco Special (TV) and Sheila Bridges Designer Living
  • 2006: Amazing Families (TV)
  • 2010: Undercover Boss (TV, 1 episode: 7-Eleven)
  • 2010: Music by Prudence
  • 2013: God Loves Uganda
  • 2014: Tutu: The Essence of Being Human
  • 2015: Gospel of Intolerance
  • 2015: Blackface
  • 2016: Life, Animated
  • 2018: American Jail
  • 2019: The Apollo
  • 2023: Cassandro
  • 2023: Love to Love You, Donna Summer
  • 2023: The Super Models (TV)
  • 2023: Stamped from the Beginning

Producer

  • 1995: People Yearbook '95 (TV) (segment producer)
  • 1996: Sex, Drugs and Consequences (TV) (producer)
  • 1997: TV Nation: Volume One (segment producer)
  • 2000: Reagan: A Life In Pictures (TV) (producer)
  • 2001: Time (TV) (producer)
  • 2002: Secret Son (TV) (producer)
  • 2002: Life 360 (segment producer) (1 episode:Telling the Children) (segment producer)
  • 2003: Power, Privilege & Justice (TV) (producer)
  • 2003: First Off The Tee (TV) (producer)
  • 2003: New York Underground (TV) (producer)
  • 2004: The Lives They Lived (TV) (producer)
  • 2004: Moroccan Style (TV) (producer)
  • 2004 - 2005: Sheila Bridges Designer Living (series supervising producer)
  • 2006: Amazing Families (TV) (producer)
  • 2007: Alone No Love (co-producer)
  • 2007: Yearbook (TV) (series producer)
  • 2010: Music by Prudence (producer)
  • 2013: God Loves Uganda (producer)
  • 2014: Tutu: The Essence of Being Human (producer)
  • 2016: Life, Animated
  • 2022: Master of Light
  • 2023: Savior Complex

Screenwriter

  • 2000: Reagan: A Life In Pictures (TV)
  • 2003: Power, Privilege & Justice (TV)
  • 2003: First Off The Tee (TV)
  • 2003: New York Underground (TV)
  • 2004: The Lives They Lived (TV)
  • 2004: Moroccan Style (TV)
  • 2005: Sheila Bridges Designer Living: Morocco Special (TV)
  • 2006: Amazing Families (TV)
  • 2023: Cassandro co-written with David Teague [9]

Awards

References

  1. ↑ Steve Dove (January 24, 2017). "Oscar Nominations 2017: View the Complete List of Nominees". American Broadcasting Company. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  2. ↑ "2019 Sundance Film Festival: New frontier lineup announced". Sundance Film Festival. December 5, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2022. Confronting the way we understand and talk about race in America, this virtual reality documentary immerses the viewer in the long history of restriction of movement for black Americans and the creation of safe spaces in our communities.
  3. ↑ "About". One Story Up. Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022. Founded by Oscar and Emmy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams and Emmy Award-winning producer Geoff Martz, One Story Up specializes in creating both socially and artistically driven documentary films, television, series, animation and VR.
  4. ↑ "Master of Light". South by Southwest (SXSW). February 18, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  5. ↑ "Master of Light". Docmakers. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  6. ↑ "Master of Light - documentary Feature". One Story Up. 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  7. ↑ "About the Artist". George Anthony Morton. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  8. ↑ "2018 Sundance Screenwriters Intensive includes Iyabo Boyd & Roger Ross Williams/David Teague". ioncinema.com. 16 March 2018. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
  9. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14954534/
  10. 1 2 BWW News Desk. "Oscar Winning 'Music By Prudence' Premieres on HBO2, 5/12".
  11. ↑ "Photos Grouped by Event: 82nd Academy Awards Telecast" (Press release). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. March 7, 2010. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
  12. ↑ Sergio. "Oscar Winning Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams Currently Working on New Documentary About Autism - IndieWire". Archived from the original on 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2015-05-15.
  13. ↑ "God Loves Uganda (2013) | Documentary Edge Festival 2014". Archived from the original on 2015-05-04. Retrieved 2015-05-15.
  14. ↑ A, Project. "ashland independent film festival". ashland independent film festival.
  15. ↑ "DIFF Filmmaker Award Winners - Dallas Film Society". Archived from the original on 2015-06-12.
  16. ↑ "Life Animated - a documentary by Roger Ross Williams". Life Animated. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017. Winner Sundance directing award: U.S. documentary
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