Dee Rees

Dee Rees is an openly lesbian Black American filmmaker whose work centers on the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality with rare poetic force. She studied at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts under Spike Lee. Her debut feature Pariah (2011) — about a Black teenage girl in Brooklyn coming to terms with her lesbian identity — was one of the most celebrated American indie debuts of the decade, winning the Excellence in Cinematography Award at Sundance. She directed the HBO biopic Bessie (2015), starring Queen Latifah as blues legend Bessie Smith, for which she received Emmy nominations. Her breakthrough into mainstream prestige cinema came with Mudbound (2017), a sweeping drama about two families in postwar Mississippi, which earned four Academy Award nominations — including the first nomination for a Black woman in the Best Cinematography category, for cinematographer Rachel Morrison.