Yvonne Welbon is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 independent

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

 film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, producer

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 and screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 based in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

.

Biography

Welbon has directed eight films and produced a dozen others. Her work has been screened on PBS, Starz/Encore, TV-ONE, IFC, Bravo, BET, the Sundance Channel and in over one hundred film festivals around the world. Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100 won ten best documentary awards—including the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. Her ongoing Sundance Documentary Fellow project is Sisters in Cinema, a documentary, website and forth-coming book based on her doctoral dissertation about the history of African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 women feature film directors.

Her producer credits include: John Pierson

John Pierson (filmmaker)

John Pierson is an American independent filmmaker. He is best known for helping to produce the first works by filmmakers Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Michael Moore, and Kevin Smith...

's Split Screen

Split screen (film)

In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen's frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye...

, Zeinabu Irene Davis

Zeinabu irene Davis

Zeinabu irene Davis is an African American filmmaker and professor of the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. The filmmakers's husband and daughters inspire Davis' films and serve as the driving force for her career...

' Sundance dramatic competition feature Compensation, Cheryl Dunye

Cheryl Dunye

Cheryl Dunye is a film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye is a lesbian and her work often concerns themes of race, sexuality and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians.Dunye was born in Liberia...

's HBO film Stranger Inside

Stranger Inside

Stranger Inside is a television drama film directed by Cheryl Dunye that premiered on cable television in 2001. The story primarily concerns African-American lesbians in prison. Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., helped to produce it...

, Thomas Allen Harris

Thomas Allen Harris

Thomas Allen Harris is the founder and President of Chimpanzee Productions a company dedicated to producing unique audio-visual experiences that illuminate the Human Condition and the search for identity, family, and spirituality...

' Berlin International Film Festival

Berlin International Film Festival

The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...

 award-winning documentary É Minha Cara (That's My Face), and Catherine Crouch

Catherine Crouch

Catherine Crouch is an acclaimed lesbian filmmaker whose film The Gendercator garnered controversy in 2007.-Filmography:*Osco Bag *Vanilla Lament - 16mm - *One Small Step - 16mm - *A Christmas Sacrifice *Stray Dogs...

's directorial debut Stray Dogs.

Recently produced documentaries include: Scale, by Alex Juhasz, GARBAGE! The Revolution Starts at Home, by Andrew Nisker, and The Water Front, by Liz Miller

Liz Miller

Elizabeth Sinclair Miller is a British physician, surgeon, campaigner and writer noted for her outspoken stance on mental health, and bipolar disorder in particular...

.

Welbon received an undergraduate degree in History from Vassar College

Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. Thereafter, she spent six years in Taipei

Taipei

Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, where she taught English, learned Mandarin Chinese, and founded and published an arts magazine. She returned to the United States and completed a Masters of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

. She is also a graduate of the American Film Institute

American Film Institute

The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

's, Directing Workshop for Women.

Welbon is the current department chair and an assistant professor in the Journalism and Media Studies department at Bennett College for Women, a women's HBCU in Greensboro, NC. She has been teaching at Bennett since August 2008.

Director

• Monique (1991)
• The Cinematic Jazz of Julie Dash (1992)
• Sisters in the Life: First Love (1993)
• Missing Relations (1994)
• Remembering Wei-Yi Fang, Remembering Myself (1996)
• Split Screen
  Split screen (film)
  In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen's frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye...
  
  (TV series, 1997)
• Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100 (1999)
• The Taste of Dirt (2003)
• Sisters in Cinema (2003)

Producer

• Monique (1991)
• One Small Step (1999)
• Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100 (1999)
• Stray Dogs (2003)
• Sisters in Cinema (2003)

Selected Articles

• Ehrenstein, David. Sisters with Cameras. The Advocate, February 17, 2004.
• Lindsey, Craig D. 'Sisters' gives Fascinating Insight. The News & Observer, February 6, 2004.
• Moss, Marilyn. Sisters in Cinema. The Hollywood Reporter, February 6, 2004.
• Sumner, Jane. Filmmaker finds 'Sisters' in cinema but not Hollywood, Dallas Morning News, February 6, 2004.
• Bianco, Robert. Critics Corner- What to Watch This Weekend. USA Today. February 5, 2004.
• Mertes, Cara. Yvonne Welbon: The Indies' Own Self-Help Guru, The Independent, March 2003 Koehler, Robert. Sisters in Cinema. Variety. March 11, 2003.
• Merk, Ron. Be Your Own Distributor: If You Want Something Done Right..., Release Print, April 2002
• "The Innovators - Featuring 117 Gay and Lesbian Trend-Breakers: Yvonne Welbon" The Advocate. August 14, 2001
• Juhasz, Alexandra - Yvonne Welbon. Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
• "She Said Cinema: Yvonne Welbon," broadcast on the Sundance Channel, April 2001
• Stein, Rob. "Living With Pride," In The Life, #904, broadcast on PBS, April/May 2000
• Raab, Barbara. "The Book of Ruth," The Advocate, April 11, 2000
• Graham, Renee. "Life in the Pop Lane: Inspiring 'Pride' Depicts Life of Oldest Black Lesbian," The Boston Globe, April 11, 2000
• Wisco, Albert. "Yvonne Welbon at the Toronto Film Festival." Studio2, TV Ontario, broadcast November 12, 1999
• Willis, Holly. "Fifty Creatives to Watch." Variety, August 23–29, 1999
• Shen, Ted. "Film Explores Pride, Prejudice of a Lifestyle." The Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1999
• Willis, Holly. "Twenty-Five New Faces of Indie Film." Filmmaker, Summer 1998
• Redding, Judith M. and Victoria A. Brownworth "Yvonne Welbon: Memory." Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors, Seattle,WA: Seal Press, 1997, pp. 112 – 116.
• Walker, Cary. "Rethinking the Past: Learning to Question Mainstream Perceptions" Focus, Vol. XVII, 1997, pp. 13–22.
• Carter, Tammy."Soul Searching in the Far East." Times-Picayune, (New Orleans) July 28, 1996.
• Mura, David. "Alternative Gazes." New Observer, (Philadelphia, PA), July 17, 1996.
• Scott, Tony. "P.O.V. Remembering Wei Yi-fang..." Variety, July 29, 1996,
• Shen, Ted. "Reel Life: The Kindness of Strangers," The Reader, February 2, 1996.
• Miller, Cheryl. "In The Life: New Works by Black Lesbian Filmmakers." Hot Wire Vol 8, No. 3, September 1992.

External links

• Official site