Yoruba Richen

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: Born 1972  

Ethnicity: African American

Celebrating Yoruba Richen! "In her documentary films, Yoruba Richen unites African-American, feminist and LGBTQ voices in a renewed cry for civil rights for all." Read more on Richen's TED profile.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (2022) directed with Johanna Hamilton "Perhaps foremost, “Mrs. Rosa Parks” highlights the selflessness of its subject and seeks to provide a detailed portrait of a woman who, through the vagaries of history, was frequently reduced to a symbol." Read more on CNN Entertainment.

How It Feels to Be Free (2021) '“How It Feels to Be Free” is a documentary, at once sobering and enchanting, that interweaves portraits of six legendary stars, all of them Black women (Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson, and Pam Grier), telling the story of the trails they blazed, the ceilings they broke, the doors they kicked open, the splendor they achieved, and the wounds they endured.' Read more about the film in Variety's ‘How It Feels to Be Free’ Review: A Captivating Documentary Salute to Cicely Tyson, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, and Other Black Female Stars Who Blazed the Trail.

The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte hosts the Tonight Show (2020)

"Belafonte became the first Black person to host a late-night TV show — even if it was only for a week, as Richard Nixon’s problematic and controversial presidency loomed ominously on the horizon. His guests also included notable African Americans of the day like Lena Horne, Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby, and others, all engaged in searing, in-depth interviews, taking place in an America that was forced to really contend with itself as a country on the verge of radical change."

Read more in IndieWire's ‘The Sit-In’: Revisit the ‘Lost’ Week in 1968 When Harry Belafonte Hosted ‘The Tonight Show’.

The New Black (2013)

"Laid-back yet incisive, “The New Black” examines the complexity of black attitudes toward same-sex marriage, which the mainstream media tend to oversimplify as church-dominated and uniformly negative." Read more in Variety's review.

Read more about Richen on her CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism profile.

Explore her filmography on MUBI:

Black Public Media is having its sixth PitchBLACK Forum on April 25th and April 26th. The competition awards Black creatives up to $150,000 for film and media projects. The winners will be announced on April 27th at the PitchBLACK Awards honoring documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen. The event will happen at The Green Space in Manhattan and Baltimore comedian Sir Alex is the emcee. Netflix's Fund for Creative Equity is supporting the PitchBLACK Forum and Awards for 2023 and 2023. The new grant builds on previous support to Black Public Media in 2020.  

“We are so happy to have Netflix continue its work with our organization through this partnership,” said Leslie Fields-Cruz, executive director of BPM. “Just as Netflix helped change the way audiences find and consume their entertainment, we at BPM are confident that this partnership will help us continue our work to help Black and independent storytellers and creative technologists forge new paths.”

BPM has awarded more than $1.7 million to over 17 projects since it PitchBLACK forum launched in 2015. Some of the projects have premiered on PBS, WORLD Channel, Create and PBS Digital. Program Alumni have produced for PBS, CNN, Showtime, Netflix, BET, NBC, The CW and more. The PitchBLACK Forum is a funding competition for filmmakers and immersive media producers/directors developing new projects about the Black experience. The participants compete for awards up to $150,000 in funding in front of a panel of media professionals and a virtual audience of funders, distributors and industry leaders. 

The forum this year culminates BPM's 360 Incubator+ program, an intensive three-month fellowship under the mentorship of veteran producers offering participants an opportunity to develop a film, web series or engagement project. The event includes the PitchBLACK Film Forum on Tuesday, April 25; and the PitchBLACK Immersive Forum on Wednesday, April 26. Winners will be announced on the evening of Thursday, April 27 during the PitchBLACK Awards honoring Richen, whose works have chronicled the trials and triumphs of Black life with films about Harry Belafonte, Rosa Parks, Harry Belafonte, the killing of Breonna Taylor and more. Richen will join the ranks of other of BPM Trailblazer Award winners including Orlando Bagwell, Joe Brewster, Michéle Stephenson and Marco Williams. 

BPM will also present the Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellowship to a yet-to-be-announced recipient. The fellowship is named after BPM's late director of digital initiatives. 

The PitchBLACK Immersive Forum and PitchBLACK Awards will stream live on BPM’s social media channels. The PitchBLACK Film Forum is invitation-only.

For more information on BPM, visit blackpublicmedia.org. Follow the organization and watch the events at @blackpublicmedia on Instagram and Facebook and @BLKPublicMedia on Twitter.

The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show dir. Yoruba Richen (2020)

Today the BlackStar Film Festival highlighted its Luminiferous Shorts. These are films that illustrate light bearers and revolutionaries. Within this shorts block, the three films featured were the documentary Old Man River, the documentary Free Joan Little and the experimental film A Bundle of Silences. Among the three, I want to review the following film Free Joan Little. From Peabody…