JEZEBEL producer turned director, Winter Dunn, was recently selected from Film Independent’s Project Involve cohort for a $10,000 grant to develop a new film project through the 2021 Amazon Studios Film Fellowship for her directorial work on the upcoming short film, DEAR MAMA. The award, given to one member of the Film Independent program recognized as a ‘visionary filmmaker’, was announced at the Project Involve First Look Screening, which showcased seven shorts by this year’s Project Involve fellows at the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) Theater on November 11, 2021.
The Color Creative filmmaker made her directorial debut with the short film JUNEBUG in 2020, which is now streaming on Issa Rae’s HOORAE. Dunn’s second directorial project, Dear Mama.., stars Mikayla Lashae Bartholomew (King Richard) and Garland Scott (Bullet Train, The Ghost Who Walks). The short film is set to publicly premiere in 2022 in the film festival circuit.
Click Here to Watch Director/Producer Winter Dunn’s “Junebug” Interview with Blackfilm.com
In true student of the craft and multi-hyphenate director-producer-actor form, Winter plans to apply the grant award toward her professional development as a filmmaker and to support opportunities to collaborate with other established and emerging creatives.
Director’s Bio
Winter Dunn is an award-winning producer, director and actress hailing from Gary, IN with a passion for depicting rich Black stories. She produced Numa Perrier’s debut feature film, JEZEBEL which premiered at SXSW 2019, won Best Narrative Feature at the American Black Film Festival and is currently streaming on Netflix via Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY. The multi-hyphenate filmmaker made her directorial debut with the award-winning short film JUNEBUG which premiered at American Black Film Festival, made its television debut on FOX Soul and is currently streaming on Tubi andIssa Rae Presents/Hoorae.
Dunn has directed multiple web series and runs a full-service Los Angeles based multimedia production house, Winter Dunn Productions (WDP). She also directed the first season of “All Her with Angela Rye” for Quibi, a documentary series, produced by Overbrook Entertainment.
Previously, Winter served as a producer/director for the global media company Condé Nast Entertainment. Her celebrity video features for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Architectural Digest, GQ, Allure and other media brands have garnered over 60 million views and counting.
Dunn graduated from the Chicago Academy for the Arts and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from Fordham University. She is the 2021 recipient of the Amazon Studios Fellowship grant, awarded yearly to a visionary filmmaker through Film Independent’s Project Involve Directing Fellowship and is currently represented by Issa Rae’s ColorCreative.
Director’s Statement
DEAR MAMA is a powerful story about grief and a teenager who is forced to figure out how to move on without the support and understanding of her mother. We meet Tanisha and her dad Nate on the night of packing up their family home, forcing them to answer the question, “What do we do with mom’s stuff?” This story touches me deeply because it deals with themes that we’re all familiar with while bringing focus to Black family and hip hop music.
As a Black woman and a lover of hip hop, I have never seen a story that centers a young black girl actively working through her pain using hip hop as a place of comfort. In the early 90’s, there were many misconceptions about the music and the effects it would have on our youth. We see that Tanisha has found a connection to her mother through the music and fights for that despite resistance from her absent father. I believe there are many people who have had to find their own ways of grieving and eventually healing. I hope each of those people see themselves in this film.
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