Contessa Gayles
Directing
Biography
Contessa is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist, and an Emmy-nominated producer. She tells stories about identity, socio-political movement, healing, liberation, and radical imagination, with a focus on race and gender.
Known For
Sentenced to life in prison at 15, musician JJ'88 finds hope by writing songs during solitary confinement in this award-winning documentary visual album.
Songs from the Hole
A look at the record number of first-time female candidates who ran, won and upended politics in the historic 2018 midterm elections; featuring three candidates in Texas, Indiana and Illinois who each were looking to flip their red district to blue.
Surge
A convicted felon builds a feminist movement from behind bars at an all-male prison in Soledad, California.
The Feminist on Cellblock Y
Focusing on the first group of Black debutantes in Canton, Ohio in a decade, this documentary follows the young women as they unpack the ball’s legacy and chart their path forward, both for tradition and themselves.
The Debutantes
In this kaleidoscopic ode to girlhood, young campers find freedom, sisterhood, and themselves at a historically Black summer camp.
Founder Girls
FOR OUR CHILDREN unites maternal voices of resilience and solidarity in a poignant cinematic journey. Directed, produced and co-written by Débora Souza Silva, this emotional documentary chronicles the powerful convergence of two mothers, Reverend Wanda Johnson and Angela Williams, whose lives were forever altered by the scourge of police brutality against their Black sons.