Instead of getting angry and doing nothing I am just writing this list in response to the laziest stoopidest film power list created by the Guardian. I guess they just sat around in their white office full of smug white people who are too lazy to look beyond their white picket fence. Yes pun intended.
So here is the BlackmanVision 100 Film Power List in no particular order because we are not into competition and each person/organization has their own value and worth. Power is not just about money and box office, it is also about contributing to a wider important film culture and debate.
And guess what? In this list there are some white people! Feel free to add more in the comments or disagree. Bring it On!!
Horace Ové – The first black person to ever make a feature length movie – Pressure, in the UK, he is still going strong
Gurinder Chadha – one of the most commercially successful female directors in the UK, invented a catchprhrase – Bhaji on the Beach, Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice
Pratibha Parmar – award winning filmmaker of features and documentaries, the first lesbian of colour to make a feature film in the UK - Nina’s Heavenly Delights, Warrior Marks, Jodie; An Icon, The Righteous Babes
John Akomfrah – award-winning director and film artist and OBE - Handsworth Songs, Seven Songs for Malcolm X, Mnemosyne& the whole crew at Smoking Dogs, cos they are a collective Lina Gopaul, David Lawson, Trevor Mathison & Eddy George
Noel Clarke – he makes all those gangsta urban dramas and gets on TV alot – Adulthood, 4321
Lee Daniels – first Black person ever to win an Oscar – for Producing Monster’s Ball and directed Precious
Oprah – she can just go by one name – nuff said, but put her money behind Malcolm X and Precious and other film/TV projects
Tyler Perry – made his name through selling works to black people and set up the first Black owned film studio in the USA
Will Smith – the biggest box office draw in the UNIVERSE!
Jane Goldman – writes the best screenplays and directs and has pink hair – Stardust, Kick-Ass, The Debt, X-Men:First Class
Ben Cook – director of LUX and supportive of people who are working in artists moving image
Laura Mulvey – author of “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” and professor of Film at Birkbeck College
Cheryl Dunye – first Black lesbian ever to make a feature film and recently directed The OWLS, also Watermelon Woman and Stranger Inside
Ilene Chaiken – Producer of the L word – the biggest lesbian series ever
Christine Vachon – most powerful producer of and the founding producer of New Queer Cinema – Poison, Swoon, Go Fish, Kids, Boys Don’t Cry,
Tom Kalin – new queer cinema director – Swoon, Savage Grace
Sarah Schulman – screenwriter and activist and will adapt her play Carson McCullers (Historically Inaccurate) into the movie Lonely Hunter
Guinevere Turner – screenwriter of American Psycho, Notorious Bettie Paige and Go Fish
Rose Troche – director of Go Fish iconic lesbian movie
Effie Brown – indie film producer of Stranger Inside, Real Women Have Curves and In the Cut
Racialicious – we are reading them, are you?
After Ellen – if you are not on there, why not?
Queerty – inside queer stories in Hollywood
Derek Malcolm – wonderful critic who came to East London to talk to youths about film when I asked. His TV show was fantastic. His column awesome.
George Clooney – because he does work in Darfur and knows Africa is NOT a country, box office god
Ben Affleck – OK apart from J-Lo – let’s draw a veil over that one, is very knowledgeable about Black culture and Africa
Matt Damon – has he been in any flops? No! And is a good writer and actor and friend to the queers
F. Gary Gray – director Set it Off – nuff said and of course The Italian Job
Spike Lee – for his massive portfolio and not letting Paxman get away with stupid questions about race, She’s Gotta Have It, X, Do the Right Thing
Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski – (brother and sister team) for making awesome films like the Matrix and deconstructing white masculinity in a sneaky way
Charlize Theron – for being a kick ass actress and Producing risky edgy films - Monster
Apichatpong Weerasethaku – for winning the Palme D’or this year and being an out gay man from a non- Western country making non-narrative films. w00t!
Helen de Witt – for being one of the first people to work to set up the Trans Film Festival and also working at the LLGFF and LFF
Kim Yutani – for setting up Fusion a place for films for queer people of colour
Barbara Hammer – powerhouse of lesbian aesthetic and avante garde cinema
Julianne Moore - a friend to queers who has consistently used her *name* to get challenging queer work made. ♥
Keith Shiri – founder of Africa at the Pictures which showcases African cinema
Haile Gerima – writer director of Sankofa
Isaac Julien – artist filmmaker Looking for Langston and Young Soul Rebels
Deepah Mehta – director of Fire and big phat portfolio of others
Mira Nair – director of Amelia, Vanity Fair, Monsoon Wedding
Souleymane Cissé – director of Yeelen among many other films
Nollywood – those Nigerian filmmakers are gonna take over the world and you won’t know what hit you
Rajkumar Hirani – dir of 3 idiots the highest grossing Bollywood movie forget Bollywood at your risk
Queen Latifah - Producer The Perfect Holiday – there will be more
Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein – bare nostalgia here, so really scraping through – Crying Game, Pulp Fiction, Heavenly Creatures
Debra Zimmerman – Women Make Movies
Kathy Wolfe – Wolfe Video – largest/oldest distributor of LGBT movies
Kahloon Loke/Tom Abell – supporter and distributor of indie LGBT work and founders of Peccadillo Pictures
TLA Releasing – one of the largest distributors of LGBT titles
Yvonne Welbon – Sisters in Cinema - compiles a resource about African American women in cinema
Sylviane Rano & Betty Sulty-Johnson – Images of Black Women Film Festival – it does what it says on the tin
Suzanne de Passe – nominated for an Oscar for Lady Sings the Blues and now a major Hollywood executive
Antoine Fuqua – dir Training Day where Denzel Washington won the Oscar
Denzel Washington – a bankable heart throb since back in the Spike Lee days
Halle Berry – one of my friends had lunch with her and said she was sweet and smelled nice. Box office kerching. This moment is so much bigger……
Jodie Foster – did she come out yet? A child actor who did not go crazy and addicted
Rich Ross – Head of Disney and out and proud – erm …how could he be ‘in” c’mon look at his picture?
Sherry Lansing – first woman to head a Hollywood studio
Amy Pascal – head of Columbia Tri-star
Donna Langley – co-chair of Universal Pictures
Sue Naegle – President of HBO Entertainment
Elizabeth Gabler – President Fox 2000 Pictures
Ann Daly – COO Dreamworks Animation
Nancy Utley – President Fox Searchlight Pictures
Emma Watts – President of 20th Century Fox – yeah she was responsible for Avatar
Ellen De Generes – I know, she doesn’t make films but anyone promoting films wants to be on her show.
Amy Baer – President and CEO CBS Films
Laura Ziskin – Produces the Spider Man franchises
Lauren Shuler Donner – Producer of the X-Men series
Christina Norman – CEO The Oprah Winfrey Newtowrk
Tracey Jacobs – Top Hollywood agent – Tim Robbins is on her books yaay and other A-Listers
Hylda Queally – represents among others – Penelope Cruz nuff said
Cynthia Pett-Dante – represents Brad Pitt
Claudia Lewis – Head of Production – Fox Searchlight – Whip It, Notorious
Deborah Schindler – Head of Sony Pictures international motion picture production
Nina Shaw – one of Hollywood’s power lawyers who negotiates for Jamie Foxx, Laurence Fishburne amongst others
Vanessa Morrison – President of Fox Animation – Fantastic Mr Fox, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Aamir Khan – Producer and actor – 3 idiots, Lagaan
Stephanie Allain Bray – Hustle & Flow, Something New, and Black Snake Moan
Debra Martin Chase – heads Denzel Washington’s Production Company
Lisa Cortés – Producer – The Woodsman, Shadowboxer, Monster’s Ball, Precious
Ava DuVernay – her company DVA provided strategy and execution for directors such as Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Michael Mann, Gurinder Chadha
Samuel D. Pollard – producer Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin yes!!! aslo works as a power editor
George Tillman Jr. and Robert Teitel – producer/director team – Barbershop films, Notorious, Soul Food
Abbas Kiarostami – writer – Certified Copy
Rachid Bouchareb – French director – Little Senegal, London River, Hors La Loi
Cath Le Couteur and Jess Search – Shooting People
Rebecca O’Brien – Producer – Sweet Sixteen, My Name is Joe, Land and Freedom and The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Rachael Prior – Producer – Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz
Diablo Cody – Juno, (draw a veil over Jennifer’s Body) has cool ink and a great blog
Angelina Jolie – no film will fail with this woman in it and lesbians love her!
Jennifer Aniston – another box office winner – obviously the good girl to Jolie’s rude gyal tings
Meryl Streep – apparently if her name is on anything it gets greenlit pronto. Hooray for older hotties
Sarah Jessica Parker – people may sneer because of the so called ‘chick flick” genre but she brings home the box office bacon
Cameron Diaz – quirky box office gold
Sandra Bullock – everybody loves her and even more so now we know she can have heartache even tho she is worth millions
Drew Barrymore – just gets better from E.T to Charlie’s Angels and Whip it. Doing it for the grrls
Helen Mirren – just plain UK film royalty
Dame Judy Dench – used to be a patron of a little organisation I worked for and was charming and unpretentious – pure class
Sorry for the typos. Wrote it really fast off the top of my head as really busy working on Stud Life. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/studlifemovie” target=”_blank”>www.facebook.com/studlifemovie
At least it goes to show it doesn't really take much effort to be diverse and inclusive.
Sweet list, but missing alot of people, for starters: sis, you forgot to add these two:
101: Campbell X: best black female film producer in UK
102: Adele V Rogers: first lesbian, black, female writer, screeplaywright and soon to be producer of GLBTQ fiction and non-fiction, in Trinidad and Tobago (and the Caribbean…as far as I know)
NB: There is a typo in the list: the word ‘Network’ in “Oprah WInfrey’s Network” is spelt incorrectly; and I am still waiting to add you to my list of people involved in my first GLBTQ movie, ‘Freaky and Geeky’
Sorry for the typos. Wrote it really fast off the top of my head as really busy working on Stud Life. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/studlifemovie” target=”_blank”>www.facebook.com/studlifemovie
At least it goes to show it doesn't really take much effort to be diverse and inclusive.
No probs! We almost perfect women are just that, almost perfect…lol
Campbell,
Sweet list, but missing alot of people, for starters: sis, you forgot to add these two:
101: Campbell X: best black female film producer in UK
102: Adele V Rogers: first lesbian, black, female writer, screeplaywright and soon to be producer of GLBTQ fiction and non-fiction, in Trinidad and Tobago (and the Caribbean…as far as I know)
NB: There is a typo in the list: the word ‘Network’ in “Oprah WInfrey’s Network” is spelt incorrectly; and I am still waiting to add you to my list of people involved in my first GLBTQ movie, ‘Freaky and Geeky’