Tow Professor Yoruba Richen was one of five women chosen for the inaugural Breakthrough Filmmaker Awards from Chicken & Egg Pictures, a leading supporter of female documentarians.
The honor comes with a $50,000 grant and a year-long mentorship program.
Richen, who runs the documentary journalism program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, explores issues of race and power in her work. She has directed films in the U.S. and abroad, including The New Black and Promised Land.
She is currently working on How It Feels To Be Free, a two-part documentary chronicling how black entertainers such as Lena Horne and Cicely Tyson navigated the industry and took control of their own images, all the while fighting for civil rights through their art and actions.
The New Black, which explores how the African-American community is grappling with same-sex marriage and other gay rights issues, won Audience Awards at AFI Docs, Philly Q Fest, and Frameline LGBT Film Festival. The film also won best documentary at the Urbanworld Film Festival and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a GLAAD Media Award. The New Black opened theatrically at New York’s Film Forum and aired on PBS’s Independent Lens.
Richen has received grants from such organizations as Sundance Documentary Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and the Ford Foundation. She won the Creative Promise Award at Tribeca All Access and was also a Sundance Producers Fellow.
She is a featured TED Speaker and a Guggenheim Fellow.