Yvonne Welbon

An award-winning independent filmmaker, originally from Chicago, Yvonne Welbon received a B.A. in history from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Thereafter, she spent six years in Taipei, Taiwan, where she taught English, learned Mandarin Chinese, and at the age of 23, founded and published a premiere arts magazine with $300. She ran the magazine for five years.

Welbon returned to the United States and enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned an M.F.A. with a concentration in film and video and in 2001 a Ph.D. in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University. She is also a graduate of the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women. Welbon has successfully produced and distributed over 20 films including Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis@ 100, winner of ten best documentary awards—including the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary and Sisters in Cinema a documentary on the history of black women feature film directors.

Her films have screened on PBS, Starz/Encore, TV-ONE, IFC, Bravo, the Sundance Channel, BET, HBO and in over one hundred film festivals around the world including Toronto, Berlin and Sundance. She is currently producing The New Black, a documentary directed by Yoruba Richen and her first trans-media project, Sisters in the Life: 25 Years of Out African American Lesbian Media-making (1986 – 2011), a web based online community building project that also includes a book of essays, a documentary, an archive and a mobile application.

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