Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts 2023

Yvonne Welbon

Yvonne Welbon(she/her) is an award-winning filmmaker and founder and CEO of the Chicago-based nonprofit Sisters in Cinema, inspired by her documentary of the same name, about the history of Black women feature film directors. She is a Senior Creative Consultant at Chicken & Egg Pictures, and has produced and distributed dozens of award-winning films, including Living With Pride: Ruth Ellis @100. Welbon’s work has been broadcast on PBS, Starz/Encore, TV-ONE, IFC, Bravo, the Sundance Channel, BET, HBO, Netflix, and iTunes, and screened in over 100 film festivals around the world. Projects in development include The Spies Who Loved Me, a thrilling exposé on surveillance which focuses on the six years she lived in Taipei, Taiwan; and American Pride, a Black lesbian coming-of-age series set on the south side of Chicago. She has taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Bennett College, where she chaired the Journalism & Media Studies Department. Raised in an Afro-Latinx Honduran household on the South Side of Chicago, Welbon holds a B.A from Vassar College, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and is a graduate of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. In 2020 she became a member of the Documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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