Award-winning director/writer/producer Gina Prince-Bythewood is one of the most versatile storytellers working in film and television. Known for her authentic character-driven work, Prince-Bythewood has directed and written such influential feature films as Love & Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees, and Beyond the Lights.

Other recent credits for Prince-Bythewood include the special event series, Shots Fired which she and her husband Reggie Rock Bythewood served as series creators and executive producers. The 10-hour series for Fox, examined the dangerous aftermath of two racially charged shootings in a small Southern town. In addition, Prince-Bythewood directed the pilot for Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger, which launched to strong reviews and viewers, starring breakout actors Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph as two teenagers with newly acquired superpowers who are mysteriously linked to one another.

An advocate for equal representation in film, Prince-Bythewood funds a scholarship for African American students in the film program at UCLA, her alma mater.

Breakout star KiKi Layne made her debut on the big screen as the female lead in Barry Jenkins’ film If Beale Street Could Talk for Annapurna and Plan B Entertainment. The film premiered to rave reviews at both the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival and went on to win Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2019. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture, and a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Picture.

Layne was seen in HBO’s Native Son, starring opposite Ashton Sanders, Margaret Qualley, and Nick Robinson. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2019 as the Opening Night Feature. Layne and Sanders co-starred again in 2019 for Rupert Wyatt’s Captive State.

Layne can also be seen starring opposite Julianne Moore in Luca Guadagnino’s short film The Staggering Girl that premiered in Cannes in May 2019. Following completion of her work on The Old Guard Layne went straight on to shoot Coming to America 2 beside Eddie Murphy and James Earl Jones. The film is slated for a 2020 release.

Layne’s stage credits include the US premiere of Octagon (2016) at the Jackalope Theatre in Chicago which garnered her a Black Theater Alliance Award (BTAA) nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Other stage credits include Genesis (2014), Good People (2015), and Definition Theatre and The New Colony’s co-production of Byhalia, Mississippi (2016) which earned her another BTAA nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play and Most Promising Actress. She graduated with a BFA in acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University in 2014.

She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins was born and raised in Miami, FL. Jenkins’ feature film debut, Medicine for Melancholy, was hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by The New York Times and received several Independent Spirit and Gotham Award nominations. Along with playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jenkins received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his second feature the Academy Award and Golden Globe winning Best Picture Moonlight. As well as earning eight Academy Award nominations, ten Broadcast Critics Choice Awards nominations, six Golden Globe nominations and four BAFTA nominations, Moonlight won Best Picture and Director at the Gotham Awards and Best International Film by the British Independent Film Awards. In addition to NYFCC and NBR awarding Jenkins Best Director and LAFCA naming him Best Director and the film Best Picture, Jenkins received a DGA Best Director nomination and won the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay. His third feature, the adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk went on to receive three Academy Award nominations and won Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards. Jenkins also received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Director.

For television, Jenkins directed an episode in the first season of the Netflix Original Series Dear White People. His next project for television is an adaptation of National Book Award winner Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad for Amazon. Jenkins has directed all nine episodes. In addition, he is penning a coming of age drama based on the life of the first American Female Olympic boxing champ Clarissa “T-Rex” Shields.