Chinonye Chukwu is the first black woman to win Sundance’s top honor, and it’s about time

By MADISON VANDERBERG via https://hellogiggles.com

For the first time in Sundance’s history, a black woman has taken home the film festival’s Grand Jury Prize. Nigerian-American filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu earned the top spot in the U.S. Dramatic category for her film Clemency, a death row drama about a female prison warden struggling with the emotional rigors of her job.

Chukwu was inspired to write this story after Troy Davis’ tragic and controversial 2011 execution. She spent the next four years doing research, telling Shadow and Act that she met “with many wardens and retired wardens, and various corrections staff and executive staff, and lawyers, and men and women, and people who were incarcerated. They all informed my kind of creation of the characters, my building and my …

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