USA

Born in 1969 in Austin, Texas, and a child actress on Sesame Street, Shola Lynch studied Liberal Arts at the University of Texas. She has a master’s degree in American History from the University of California, Riverside, and was for 15 years a track athlete. She became a protégée of documentarist Ken Burns on Frank Lloyd Wright and the TV series Jazz, then worked with HBO Sports on Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team, and with Roja Productions on the Matters of Race series. She directed her feature documentary debut Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed in 2004. The second film she directed, Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2006), profiled political activist, philosopher, academic, and author, Angela Davis. The film received honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival and won Best Theatrical Documentary at the 2014 NAACP Image Awards. Lynch became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2016. She received a Creative Capital grant in 2015 to sponsor the research and production of her next film, tentatively called The Outlaw. Since 2013, Lynch has worked with the New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as the Curator of the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Filmography

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004)
Angela Davis: Le Combat Continue (2010)
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2012)
Imagine a Future (2013)
Nine for IX: Runner (2013)
We the Economy: 20 Short Films You Can’t Afford to Miss (2014)