Black women have long recognized the power of film for storytelling. For far too long, however, the cultural and historical narratives about film have not accounted for the contributions of Black women directors. This book remedies this omission by highlighting the trajectory of the culturally significant work of Black women directors in the United States, from the under-examined pioneers of the silent era, to the documentarians who sought to highlight the voices and struggles of Black women, and the contemporary Black women directors in Hollywood.  Applying a Black feminist perspective, this book examines the ways that Black women filmmakers have made a way for themselves and their work by resisting the dominant cultural expectations for Black women and for the medium of film, as a whole.
 

CHRISTINA N. BAKER is an associate professor in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced. She is the author of Contemporary Black Women Filmmakers and the Art of Resistance and the editor of Kasi Lemmons: Interviews.
 

— Allyson Nadia Field, co-editor of L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema

— Samantha N. Sheppard, author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen

— Zeinabu irene Davis, Professor and Independent Filmmaker, University of California, San Diego

— Women in Academia Report