Carolyn McDonald

History

Carolyn is the award-winning executive producer of HBO’s “America’s Dream”, the National Geographic documentary, “Bearing Light”, TNT’s “Buffalo Soldiers” + “Freedom Song”. She has scripted works for 20th Century Fox, Propaganda Films, actor/director Glynn Turman, and a number of indie producers. Carolyn directed & produced the short film P.N.O.K. featuring Danny Glover + Elle Fanning, the documentary “Design Your Neighborhood” funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as several documentaries for the Nashville Film Festival, and several music videos and short films. In 2012, she penned her memoir “INFLUENTIA: 50 Years on Earth as it is in Carolyn”; and in 2013, she published the first book of photographs from her ongoing project “Nouns in the Road, vol. 1”, and has had several exhibitions around the country.

Profile

Movies

P.N.O.K.

Director

Chronicles a day in the life of 2 soldiers on Casualty Notification Duty as they bear the grim news of 3 soldiers killed in Iraq to 3 families back home.

Freedom Song

Executive Producer

Freedom Song (2000) is a made-for-TV film based on true stories of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1960s. It tells the story of the struggle of African Americans to register to vote in the fictional town of Quinlan. In the midst of the Freedom Summer, a group of high school students in the small town are eager to make grassroots changes in their own community. The young activists meet resistance not only from white southerners, but from their parents, who have experienced firsthand the violence that can result from speaking out.[1] As high school students band together with the support of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, they make strides in registering African-American voters and gaining awareness for their cause.

Buffalo Soldiers

Co-Producer

They've ridden dusty miles without end and fought fierce battles. Yet when these brave African-American cavalrymen enter a scraggly frontier town, they must walk through it instead of ride. The town dishonors them but the soldiers' Native-American foes do not. Apache leader Victoria and other warriors give the horsemen a name of honor and strength: "Buffalo Soldiers". The troopers' daring hunt for Victorio frames this stirring tribute to the former slaves and other African-Americans of the 9th and 10th U.S. Calvary Regiments. Danny Glover, Mykelti Williamson, Glynn Turman, Carl Lumbly and Michael Warren star in an adventure bringing to light that largely unknown story and the unique moral dilemma the men faced. Atten-hut! "Buffalo Soldiers are riding" through town.

America's Dream

Executive Producer

Made especially for the HBO cable network, this well-wrought feature is comprised of three short stories by three noted black American authors, each of which is directed by a respected black director.