The first African American director to win an Oscar, Roger Ross Williams, is curating a breakout short film series on the new streaming service Topic. One Story Up, a monthly series, will be highlighting up and coming directors. Each month Williams will hand select a short film to be showcased, introducing the material and closing the segment out with a discussion with the director on the film. The films will spotlight a scope of hitting topics; mental health, coming-of-age stories on race and class, and growing up black and in the south to name a few.
Episode one from the series will feature Terrance Daye’s, “Cherish: A Visual Poem”, which looks into black masculinity, male identity, and destigmatizing mental illness in the Black community. The documentary will premiere on Oct. 15 exclusively on Topic. Williams in partnership with Geoff Martz (20/20, ABC News Nightline) founded One Story Up to specialize in making documentary films, television, streaming series and specials, animations and VR, as well as two limited documentary series for Netflix. Williams has over a decades worth of film making under his belt, with his work “Music by Prudence” winning him an Oscar in 2010.
As a part of One Story Up, Williams has also joined forces with Kenya Barris for the feature documentary directed by Nadia Hallgreen (Becoming) on civil rights attorney Ben Crump set for Netflix.
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