“American Born Chinese” Production Design Team Cindy Chao & Michele Yu’s Dazzling Details

It’s rare enough to see a production design team and rarer still to see a team of two female Asian American designers, but Cindy Chao and Michele Yu have been collaborating together successfully on both the large and small screens for over a decade. Recently they got a Primetime Emmy nomination for their work on A Black Lady Sketch Show, and now their new project, American Born Chinese, has arrived on Disney+ boasting rave reviews. 

“Awkwafina is Nora From Queens” Composer Tangelene Bolton Drops the Needle

“I’ve been playing music since I was two or three, piano specifically, and then I was really into film starting in middle school, and I thought, ooh, maybe I’ll be a director one day,” says composer Tangelene Bolton, whose work can currently be heard on season three of Awkwafina is Nora From Queens. “I started experimenting with making a bunch of short films, and I realized the music heavily influenced how I approached cutting the footage and telling the story.

Director Dawn Porter Details a Complex First Lady in “The Lady Bird Diaries”

In filmmaker Dawn Porter’s newest documentary, The Lady Bird Diaries, Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson speaks for herself. Porter’s film is based on 123 hours of audio diaries that Lady Bird recorded during the presidency of her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson. The personal, often poignant diaries reveal the First Lady’s key role as her husband’s advisor and confidante during his tumultuous presidency.

“I knew very little about Lady Bird, though I knew a lot about President Johnson,” says Porter,

“Polite Society” Writer/Director Nida Manzoor on Her Genre-Melding Feature Debut

Writer/director Nida Manzoor grew up on martial arts, action, and Bollywood, so it makes sense that her feature directorial debut Polite Society would be a genre mashup that includes all that and more. An idea she’s been kicking around since her teen years, the film is a celebration of sisterhood, inspired, in part, by her experiences as a kid learning karate with real-life sister Sanya. Though you might know Manzoor for her iconoclastic and very feminist series We Are Lady Parts,

Change Begins at Home — Diversity Initiatives Across MPA Member Studios

During the Berlinale Film Festival earlier this year, the Motion Picture Association’s European team brought together a panel of industry veterans to discuss the state of diversity in filmmaking and how to ensure that efforts to foster it have real teeth. The lively, hopeful discussion was indicative of a bigger internal shift taking place across the MPA’s member studios, two of which have recently launched their own ambitious internal diversity initiatives, embarking on new approaches to find and foster talent in previously overlooked regions,

Industry Veterans Discuss Diversity in Filmmaking – From Below the Line to Front & Center

After two alternative years, the Berlinale Film Festival returned in person in February to alleviate the doldrums of late winter Berlin. Per tradition, the Motion Picture Association held their annual topical panel discussion (in the past, they’ve covered themes like artificial intelligence and greening the industry) in conjunction with the law firm Morrison and Foerster. A 100-plus audience crowded into the firm’s office above Potsdamer Platz to hear industry veterans discuss diversity in filmmaking — where it stands and how it can get better — and more broadly,

“Beef” Costume Designer Helen Huang on Dressing “Chill” Angelenos Seething With Rage

Girl honks boy. Boy gets revenge. Complications ensue.

Beef features Oscar-nominee Steven Yeun and comedian Ali Wong as star-crossed L.A. malcontents whose lives go haywire after a road rage incident. Created by Lee Sung Jin (Silicon Valley, 2 Broke Girls), who was tapped last week to write Marvel’s upcoming Thunderbolts movie, the ten-part Netflix series (streaming now) presents outwardly chill characters who are seething on the inside.

“Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham” Composer Stefan L. Smith Draws out the Darkness

Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham submerges Bruce Wayne (David Giuntoli) in a world of magic, myths, and monsters. Set a century ago in the roaring 20s, the glamour and grandeur of Gotham glimmer beneath an evil awakening set to consume the city. The edgy animated style based on the 2000-2001 comic book miniseries by Mike Mignola and Richard Pace is appropriately avant-garde and calls for an epic, atmospheric score. Composer Stefan L.

Michelle Yeoh Makes History & “Everything Everywhere All At Once” Wins Big

In what was one of the smoothest, most genuinely pleasant Oscars telecasts in recent memory, Michelle Yeoh made history, Everything Everywhere All At Once won just about everything everywhere, and the 95th Academy Awards rolled into the history books with nary a bump in the road and backed by a gentle breeze.

Yeoh became the first Asian person to win an Academy Award in the lead actress or actor category, taking home her first Oscar for Best Actress for her astonishing performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once. 

“Champions” Star Kaitlin Olson on Doing Improv With Woody, Her Bond With Her On-Screen Brother & More

Releasing in theaters March 10th, the heartwarming and acerbic dramedy Champions, directed by Bobby Farrelly, comes just in time to cheer those sick of winter and in the need for a little spring in their step. Based on the 2018 Spanish film Campeones, which won top awards and was the biggest hit of the year in that country, Champions stars Woody Harrelson and Kaitlin Olson and features an ensemble cast that includes ten performers with developmental disabilities. 

“Sharper” Star Briana Middleton on Finding Her Edge in Apple TV’s New Thriller

Filled with plot twists, double-crosses and characters who never seem to be who they are, Sharper is designed to keep you guessing right to the end. But one thing is for certain; with a razor-sharp cast that includes Julianne Moore, Briana Middleton, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith and John Lithgow, the Apple TV+ original film delivers its many satisfactions with a cast more than equal to the job.

“It’s so fun,” says Middleton during a recent interview.

Harpo Films Director of Development & Production Lauren Tuck Wants Her Creators to Flourish

Harpo Films and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has been leading the pack in Hollywood in terms of diversity and inclusion for years. From the very beginning of OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar, creator Ava DuVernay envisioned using all female directors for the series, and both OWN and Harpo Films were 100% behind that. DuVernay’s show proved a hit, and her commitment to hiring diverse female directors resulted in greater success for the 42 helmers that took part.

Director Haifaa Al-Mansour on Casting a Spell in “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches”

Though Haifaa Al-Mansour is known as the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia by virtue of her award-winning 2012 feature Wadjda, she has since become a go-to director inside and outside Hollywood through both features and projects on the small screen. The writer/director’s releases Mary Shelley and The Perfect Candidate were lauded by critics and audiences, and her artistic contributions to shows like The Good Lord Bird,

“Harlem” Costume Designer Deirdra Elizabeth Govan on Season Two’s Evolving Looks

Costume designer Deirdra Elizabeth Govan has been working in the film industry for decades but really made a name for herself with Boots Riley’s brilliant 2018 film Sorry to Bother You. Since then, she’s worked on high profile films, including 2019’s The Sun is Also A Star and last year’s Devotion, and projects on the small screen like The L Word: Generation Q and First Wives Club.

“Fight the Power” Producer Helen Bart on Exploring Hip Hop’s Explosive Power With Chuck D

Nearly fifty years ago in the Bronx, on August 11, 1973, Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to spin funky drum breaks at his sister’s back-to-school party. The event turned out to be hip hop’s big bang moment. In the decades that followed, the music became a politically charged platform empowering Black America to share its culture through rhymes brimming with wit, ferocity and pathos. Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World,

“Descendant” Co-Writer & Producer Dr. Kern Jackson on Uncovering Living History in Mobile, Alabama

The documentary Descendant is about many things, but mostly it’s about storytelling — how oral histories, passed down from generation to generation, inform identity and community and connect the living to their ancestors. History can’t be erased or denied as long as stories are still being told.

Descendant, which won the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and is now on Netflix,

Documentarian Sam Pollard on Courting an Icon in “Bill Russell: Legend”

This week, LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record, but one superstar stat seems unlikely to be eclipsed any time soon: the late Bill Russell’s collection of 11 NBA Championship rings. One of the league’s first Black players, Russell led the Boston Celtics from 1957 through the sixties. The team’s reign culminated in 1969 after Russell became the league’s first Black player-coach and led the Celtics to a come-from-behind victory over arch-rivals the Los Angeles Lakers.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” Producer Jonathan Wang on Making an Oscar Juggernaut

It might seem as if Everything Everywhere All at Once came out of nowhere to dominate this year’s Oscar voting with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and two Best Supporting Actress nods for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis respectively. But in fact, producer Jonathan Wang has been working with writer-directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert since 2011.

Sundance 2023: Filmmaker Razelle Benally on Her Showtime Doc Series “Murder in Big Horn”

The Sundance staff and execs have always believed it essential to honor Indigenous people as part of their film festival and institute, as exampled by their Native Lab and Indigenous Program. This year, there is an even greater focus on Native cultures, both inside and outside the cinemas, with 11 Indigenous films as part of the program. 2023 also marked the inaugural year for The Indigenous House, which provided a gathering space for community members and allies,

Writer/Director Elegance Bratton on His Breakout Film “The Inspection”

Writer/director Elegance Bratton’s autobiographical The Inspection is one of the year’s breakout films. Bratton stuck with the project for years because it most reflected who he is: a gay Black man who was homeless as a teenager, a Marine Corps veteran, and a Columbia University and NYU-educated filmmaker.

Bratton’s struggles began practically at birth with that unusual, magnificent name. “My mother named me Elegance but had a problem with me being gay,” Bratton said over the phone from his home in Baltimore.