USA

Laurens Grant is a Peabody and three-time Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced and directed films all over the world. Grant directed Rokia: Voice of a New Generation, a personal story that explores gender, race, borders, and an African woman’s struggle to create music that transcends them all. Grant traveled extensively around the world with Rokia Traoré, a musician from Mali, West Africa and was granted rare access to the singer’s family, recording sessions, and rehearsals including those with the critically-acclaimed Kronos Quartet. Grant produced the feature length documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, on the history of the Black Panther Party for PBS. Grant directed the film Jesse Owens, about the African-American sprinter and his defiance of Hitler’s Aryan beliefs at the 1936 Olympics. The documentary won an Emmy for Outstanding Research, and received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Historical – Long Form and Outstanding Music and Sound. Grant also produced Freedom Riders, about the 1961 protest movement called ‘freedom rides’, which won 3 Primetime Emmys and a Peabody. Both films aired on PBS’ American Experience series. Grant has also produced and directed projects for A&E, The History Channel and for non-profit organizations in the Caribbean and several African countries. Grant is a voting member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy. She is also a member of the Television Academy’s Documentary Peer Group Executive Committee. Biography Source

Filmography

Rokia: Voice of a New Generation (2003)
American Experience: Jesse Owens (2012)
Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement (2016)
Black in Space: Breaking the Color Barrier (2020)