Courtesy of Spelman College
Spelman College is pleased to welcome award-winning filmmaker Shola Lynch as a Diana King Endowed Professor in Film, Filmmaking, Television, & Related Media and the director of the documentary film program in the Department of Art and Visual Culture.
Prior to joining Spelman, Lynch served as the Curator of the Moving Image & Recorded Sound Division of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for over 10 years. In 2016, she became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Lynch is best known for the feature documentary FREE ANGELA & All Political Prisoners, which received honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival and won a NAACP Image Award. She is also known for the Peabody Award winning documentary CHISHOLM ’72: Unbought & Unbossed. Chisholm ’72, Lynch’s first film as a director, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and won several awards including the George Foster Peabody Award.
“Shola Lynch is a world-renowned documentarian and archivist, and the Department of Art and Visual Culture is proud and excited to have her join the faculty as the Diana King Endowed Professor in Film, Filmmaking, Television, & Related Media,” said Myra Greene, professor, chair of art & visual culture and director of the photography program at Spelman. “We know that her research and teachings will have a deep impact on the community of documentarians we are fostering here in the department.”
Lynch recently completed production on an Apple Original film set to release in 2025, Number One on the Call Sheet, that celebrates Black achievement in the film industry and explores what it takes for Black actresses to find success in Hollywood. Lynch is currently working on a documentary about American sprinter and World Record holder Florence Griffith Joyner, or ‘Flo-Jo,’ and has also been tapped to helm an upcoming documentary on Reverend Jesse Jackson.
In addition to her more than 28 years making documentaries, Lynch has a M.A. in American history and public history management from the University of California, Riverside, and a M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.
