The Quiet Storm.

Dominique Jackson as Elektra Abundance in Pose (2018). 

Costume design by Lou Eyrich.

Diana Ross and Lena Horne in The Wiz (1978) dir. Sidney Lumet

Films by or about people of colour directed by women*

Some notes on the list:

This list is non-exhaustive.

The movies I counted as “starring” poc of colour have at least 1 poc as lead or co-lead.

I respect the fact that some people do not want to see movies about poc as told by white women and have separated these movies accordingly.

Some of the directors who are woc who have directed the movies starring woc are not the same race as their casts.

What counts as a woc in the western world is not what is necessarily counted as a woc in the countries that those women are from. I have created my international list based on my own western perspective.

American films directed by WOC starring POC

13th (Ava DuVernay) Documentary Appropriate Behavior (Desiree Akhavan) Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash) Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons) Everything Everything (Stella Meghie) Farah Goes Bang (Meera Menon)  Girlfight (Karyn Kusama) I Like It Like That (Darnell Martin) I Will Follow (Ava DuVernay)  It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (Emily Ting) Love and Basketball (Gina Prince-Blythewood) Losing Ground (Kathleen Collins) Pariah (Dee Rees) Peeples (Tina Gordon Chism)  Middle of Nowhere (Ava DuVernay) Mississippi Damned (Tina Mabry) Mississippi Masala (Mira Nair)  Mosquita y Mari (Aurora Guerrero)  Real Women Have Curves (Patricia Cardoso) Saving Face (Alice Wu)  Selma (Ava DuVernay)  Something New (Sanaa Hamri)  Songs My Brothers Taught Me (Chloe Zhao) Yelling to the Sky (Victoria Mahoney)

Directed by WOC starring white people The Republic of Love (Deepa Mehta) D.E.B.S. (Angela Robinson) Vanity Fair (Mira Nair) Jennifer’s Body (Karyn Kusama) Last Night (Massy Tadjedin) The Invitation (Karyn Kusama) Equity (Meera Menon) Shake It (Hella Joof)

International WOC

At Five in the Afternoon (Samira Makhmabaf) Iran Belle (Amma Asante) UK Bend it like Beckham (Gurinder Chada) UK Blackboards (Samira Makhmalbaf) Iran Bollywood/Hollywood (Deepa Mehta) Canada Dil Dhankande Do (Zoya Akhtar) India Double Happiness (Mina Schum) Canada` Earth (Deepa Mehta) Canada/India Fire (Deepa Mehta) Canada/India Heaven on Earth (Deepa Mehta) Canada Jean of the Joneses (Stella Meghie) Canada  Lipstick Under my Burka (Alankrita Shrivastava) India Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair) India Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud) France The Second Mother (Anna Muylaert) Brazil Salaam Bombay! (Mira Nair) India A Simple Life (Ann Hui) Hong Kong Still the Water (Naomi Kawase) Japan Sugar Cane Alley (Euzhan Palcy) Martinique Sweet Bean (Naomi Kawase) Japan A United Kingdom (Amma Asante) (UK) Wadjda (Haifaa al-Mansour) Saudi Arabia Water (Deepa Mehta) Canada/India The Wedding Party (Kemi Adetiba) Nigeria

Directed by white women starring POC

2 Days in New York (Julie Delpy) 35 Rhums (Claire Denis) American Honey (Andrea Arnold) Ayanda (Sara Blecher) Black Panthers (Agnès Varda) documentary Brick Lane (Sarah Gavron) The Fits (Anna Rose Holmer) Frida (Julie Taymor) Girlhood (Céline Sciamma) Honeytrap (Rebecca Johnson) Itty Bitty Titty Committee (Jamie Babbit) Mi Vida Loca (Allison Anders) No Fear, No Die (Claire Denis) Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston) documentary Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke) documentary Things We Lost in the Fire (Susanne Bier)  The Wedding Song (Karin Albou) Whale Rider (Niki Caro) Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold) 

daughters of the dust (1991, dir. julie dash)