Nicole London
Production
Biography
Nicole London (Director, Producer) is an Emmy® Award-winning and GRAMMY® -nominated producer and director who began her career as an associate producer at PBS's To The Contrary and local stations in Maryland and has gone on to work on many projects with the top directors in documentary film. She was an associate producer for AMERICAN MASTERS Marvin Gaye: What's Going On; Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me; POV's American Promise; and INDEPENDENT LENS' The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, which was nominated for a 2016 Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking Emmy. She served as a producer on Life & Life and Netflix's Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy, directed by Stanley Nelson. She was also the producer for Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, for which she was nominated for a 2020 GRAMMY for Best Music Film, and which won the 2021 News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary. In 2021, she was honored as a Trailblazer at the 22nd Annual African American Women In Cinema Film Festival. She is currently directing a new project for AMERICAN MASTERS slated for 2023
Known For

Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.
Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There

An immersive look at the eventful life and brilliant artistic career of visionary American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991).
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

A cheap, powerful drug emerges during a recession, igniting a moral panic fueled by racism. Explore the complex history of crack in the 1980s.
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy

Stanley Nelson's syncopated voyage through the history of funk music, from early roots to 1970s urban funk and beyond.
We Want the Funk!

In Becoming Frederick Douglass, acclaimed director Stanley Nelson and co-director Nicole London bring to life the story of an American icon. Using Douglass's own powerful, profound speeches and writing, the story retraces his journey from a man born and raised in slavery to one of the most prominent elder statesmen and inspiring voices for freedom in American history. With additional context and insight provided by historians, scholars and Douglass's descendants, the filmmakers recount the brutality and trauma of his childhood while illuminating his strength of character, defiance against the bonds of slavery and the influences that guided his lifelong quest for freedom. The most celebrated Black man of his era, Douglass's legacy and achievements continue to resonate today. His life and work still inspires activists, educators and citizens in the fight for freedom, equality and a more just American society.
Becoming Frederick Douglass

The story of the Black Panthers is often told in a scatter of repackaged parts, often depicting tragic, mythic accounts of violence and criminal activity; but this is an essential story, vibrant, human; a living and breathing chronicle of a pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America.
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

The Disappearance of Miss Scott chronicles Hazel Scott’s meteoric rise as a jazz talent and major Hollywood star before being blacklisted during the Red Scare.
The Disappearance of Miss Scott

This powerful, nuanced portrait arrives just in time celebrate the bicentennial of American abolitionist and political activist Harriet Tubman. Parts of her story are well known; born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of anti-slavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. But the film delves deeper, illuminating her spirit and strength through exploits as a union scout and spy during the Civil War, an activist for women's suffrage and a singular figure who defied categorization at every turn. The foremost chronicler of the Black experience working in nonfiction film today, Stanley Nelson, alongside co-director Nicole London, brings rich, deeply researched historical detail to the story of this remarkable woman.
Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom

The War on Disco explores the culture war that erupted over the spectacular rise of disco music. Originating in underground Black and gay clubs, disco had unseated rock as America’s most popular music by the late 1970s. But many diehard rock fans viewed disco, with its repetitive beat and culture that emphasized pleasure, as shallow and superficial. A story that’s about much more than music, The War on Disco explores how the powerful anti-disco backlash revealed a cultural divide that to some seemed to be driven by racism and homophobia. The hostility came to a head on July 12, 1979, when a riot broke out at “Disco Demolition Night” during a baseball game in Chicago.
The War on Disco

Follows a group of Brooklyn youth as they work to create a wall mural that commemorates the shift from enslavement to the Civil Rights Movement. The youth seen in the film are participants in the Youth and Congregations in Partnership (YCP), and Gender-Responsive Re-Entry Assistance Support Program (GRASP), under the office of the Kings County District Attorney. The history of slaves is discussed by distinguished professors and historians, beginning with the development of Colonial America and the slave trade. As the title suggests, the legal system is introduced in the film as the youth and professors explore the laws imposed on slaves.
Slavery and the Law

LIFE & LIFE tracks the journey of Reggie Austin as he redeems his life following a murder conviction 40 years ago. The film looks at Austin’s effect on his fellow inmates and his efforts to reconnect with his family, as well as the parole and sentencing of prisoners ultimately revealing the steep and dangerous hill ex-prisoners must climb upon release to create a positive future.