Kasi Lemmons

Born in St. Louis, Kasi Lemmons is an American director, screenwriter, and actress who started in front of the camera, making her acting debut in the 1979 television movie 11th Victim and appearing in films such as Spike Lee's School Daze (1988), Vampire's Kiss (1988), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Candyman (1992), and Hard Target (1993). She moved into writing and directing with Eve's Bayou (1997), which she wrote herself and which brought her an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and an Outstanding Directorial Debut award from the National Board of Review. Later films include The Caveman's Valentine (2001), Talk to Me (2007), for which she won an NAACP Image Award for directing, Black Nativity (2013), Harriet (2019), and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022). She also directed the Netflix series Self Made (2020) and adapted Fire Shut Up in My Bones as an opera libretto.