Roger Ross Williams

Roger Ross Williams

History

Roger Ross Williams is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Oscar, with his short film Music by Prudence

Profile

Roger Ross Williams

Movies

The Battle for Laikipia
Executive Producer
The stakes escalate in a longstanding conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, as unresolved historical injustices and the impact of climate change come to the forefront.
Stamped from the Beginning
Producer
Following the roots and evolution of racist concepts in the United States in order to understand today's society.
Stamped from the Beginning
Director
Following the roots and evolution of racist concepts in the United States in order to understand today's society.
Love to Love You, Donna Summer
Producer
The extraordinary story of disco queen Donna Summer through a rich archive of unpublished film excerpts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings that span the life of one of the most iconic performers ever to shake a room to its timbers. From her early career with Giorgio Moroder in Germany, to later years more focused on spirituality and family life as a shelter from troubles associated with both notoriety and intimate wounds, her story is all the more special for being told in the first person – both singular and plural.
Love to Love You, Donna Summer
Director
The extraordinary story of disco queen Donna Summer through a rich archive of unpublished film excerpts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings that span the life of one of the most iconic performers ever to shake a room to its timbers. From her early career with Giorgio Moroder in Germany, to later years more focused on spirituality and family life as a shelter from troubles associated with both notoriety and intimate wounds, her story is all the more special for being told in the first person – both singular and plural.
Cassandro
Screenplay
Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the ‘exotico’ character Cassandro, the ‘Liberace of Lucha Libre.’ In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world, but also his own life.
Cassandro
Director
Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the ‘exotico’ character Cassandro, the ‘Liberace of Lucha Libre.’ In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world, but also his own life.
Civil: Ben Crump
Producer
Crump's mission to raise the value of Black life as the civil lawyer for the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Black farmers and banking while Black victims, Crump challenges America to come to terms with what it owes his clients.
Master of Light
Producer
George Anthony Morton, a classical painter who spent ten years in federal prison, travels to his hometown to paint his family members. Going back forces George to face his past in his quest to rewrite the script of his life.
Between the World and Me
Executive Producer
Based on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ #1 New York Times bestseller and originally adapted and staged by the Apollo Theater, this special combines elements of that production - including powerful readings from Coates’ book - with documentary footage from the actors’ home life, archival footage, and animation.
The Remix: Hip Hop x Fashion
Executive Producer
The Remix: Hip Hop x Fashion highlights the hidden female figures that have curated and shaped hip-hop’s dynamic streetwear and ultimately swayed the entire fashion industry.
After Maria
Executive Producer
Strong Puerto Rican women forced to flee the island after Hurricane Maria have bonded like family in a FEMA hotel in the Bronx. They seek stability in their new life as forces try to pull them apart.
The Apollo
Co-Producer
The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment.
The Apollo
Writer
The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment.
The Apollo
Director
The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment.
Traveling While Black
Director
An immersive virtual reality documentary experience about the risks faced by blacks on the road in mid 2Oth Century America, and the safe spaces as listed in the famous guide, The Green Book, where they could eat and sleep.
Take Back the Harbor
Director
On New York's Governor's Island, an unprecedented program has the ambitious goal of restoring oysters and their environmental benefits back to New York Harbor. This documentary highlights the teenagers at a public high school that teaches stewardship of the waterways alongside math and English.
American Jail
Screenplay
In this deeply personal film, director Roger Ross Williams sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces of racism and greed currently at work in America's prison system.
American Jail
Producer
In this deeply personal film, director Roger Ross Williams sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces of racism and greed currently at work in America's prison system.
American Jail
Director
In this deeply personal film, director Roger Ross Williams sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces of racism and greed currently at work in America's prison system.
The Rachel Divide
Executive Producer
Rachel Dolezal became infamous when she was unmasked as a white woman passing for black so thoroughly that she had become the head of her local N.A.A.C.P. chapter. This portrait cuts through the very public controversy to reveal Dolezal’s motivations.
Land of the Lost Sidekicks
Director
A short, bringing all of the side kick characters in Walt Disney's animated films expressing their importance.
Life, Animated
Producer
At three years old, a chatty, energetic little boy named Owen Suskind ceased to speak, disappearing into autism with apparently no way out. Almost four years passed and the only stimuli that engaged Owen were Disney films. Then one day, his father donned a puppet—Iago, the wisecracking parrot from Aladdin—and asked “what’s it like to be you?” And poof! Owen replied, with dialogue from the movie. Life, Animated tells the remarkable story of how Owen found in Disney animation a pathway to language and a framework for making sense of the world.
Life, Animated
Director
At three years old, a chatty, energetic little boy named Owen Suskind ceased to speak, disappearing into autism with apparently no way out. Almost four years passed and the only stimuli that engaged Owen were Disney films. Then one day, his father donned a puppet—Iago, the wisecracking parrot from Aladdin—and asked “what’s it like to be you?” And poof! Owen replied, with dialogue from the movie. Life, Animated tells the remarkable story of how Owen found in Disney animation a pathway to language and a framework for making sense of the world.
blackface
Director
A week before the Sinterklaas festivities on December 5, global news channel CNN is digging into the Zwarte Piet controversy with a short documentary. Blackface was made by Oscar-winning documentary maker Roger Ross Williams who said his friends in America had been shocked the first time they saw a photograph of Sinterklaas’ helper.
Blackface
Self
Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams tries to understand why the notoriously liberal Dutch dress in blackface during the annual holiday of Sinterklaas.
God Loves Uganda
Producer
A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to infuse African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting sexual immorality and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow biblical law.
God Loves Uganda
Writer
A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to infuse African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting sexual immorality and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow biblical law.
God Loves Uganda
Director
A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to infuse African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting sexual immorality and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow biblical law.
Music by Prudence
Director
Music by Prudence tells a self-empowering story of one young woman's struggle who, together with her band, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds and, in her own voice conveys to the world that disability does not mean inability. In addition to its sheer emotional punch, Music by Prudence has become the cornerstone of an advocacy campaign and has been embraced by the UN, Human Rights Watch and the disability community as an unprecedented portrayal advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. Prudences poignant, inspiring and irreverent message of hope has received an amazing response from press and audiences all across North America, and has won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short and several other awards as it continues drawing in more audiences.
The Empire of Ebony
Producer
A documentary film following the rise of Ebony and Jet and their growth into a brand with a readership base in the millions which has had an undeniable effect on American culture.