Filmmaker, artist, and author, Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Haitian and Panamanian roots and experience as a social justice lawyer to think radically about storytelling and disrupt the imaginary in non-fiction spaces. She tells emotionally driven, personal narratives of resistance and healing that center the lived experiences of communities of color in the Americas and the Black diaspora. Grounded in a Black Atlantic lens, Stephenson tells stories that intentionally reimagine and provoke thought about how we engage with and dismantle the internalized impact of systemic oppression. She draws on fiction, immersive, experimental and hybrid forms of storytelling to build her worlds and narratives. In 2023, Stephenson had two films Oscar shortlisted – the feature documentary Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and premiered on MAX, and her ESPN short, Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, which won Best Short Doc at the Tribeca Festival. Her feature documentary, American Promise, was nominated for three Emmys and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. Her film, Stateless, was nominated for a Canadian Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Stephenson also co-directed the magical realist virtual reality trilogy series, The Changing Same, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier XR Program, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Narrative at the Tribeca Festival, and was nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Interactive Media Innovative category. Along with her writing partners, Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, Stephenson won an NAACP Image Award for Excellence in a Literary Work for their book, Promises Kept. In 2024, she received the NYWIFT Nancy Malone Muse Directing Award.
Currently, Stephenson is in post-production on a feature on the Black Power movement in Canada. She is a Guggenheim Artist Fellow, and a Creative Capital Artist.