Chinonye Chukwu is one of the most daring African American filmmakers and one of the three most accomplished NIgerian born female filmmakers with Ngozi Onwurah and Branwen Okpako.
Chinonye will be on the cover of the third edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series, the first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry published since 2013.
She directed "Igbo Kwenu!" (2009),"The Dance Lesson" (2010) about a young black girl who struggles to become a ballerina in an increasingly gentrified community and "Bottom" in 2012.
Her first feature film "Alaska-Land"
(2012), told the story of two estranged Nigerian-American brother and sister who eventually reunite in their hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. In 2013 she directed "A Long Walk" (2013), a short film about a child who is publicly ridiculed by his father.
Her critically acclaimed "Clemency"
(2019), a death row drama stars Alfre Woodard as a prison warden coming to terms with the demands of her profession and Aldis Hodge as one of her inmates bound for execution. Her inspiration for the film came from the case of Troy Davis, a prisoner executed in 2011. She moved to Los Angeles in 2017 to shoot the film. She received the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at 2019 Sundance, the first black woman to do so.
Chinonye is slated to direct "A Taste Of Power", a film based on the memoir of Elaine Brown.
Chinonye's new feature, Orion Pictures'
"Till" is about Emmett Louis Till.
"Till" tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley whose pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Louis Till became a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement. As Time Magazine reported, “…thanks to a mother’s determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn’t see.” Mamie’s decision to have an open casket at Emmett’s funeral, and to have Jet magazine publish David Jackson’s funeral photos, was driven by her motivation to ensure people everywhere knew what had happened to her son. The famous multiple award winning iconic actress, Whoopi Goldberg is playing Emmett’s grandmother.
