The Download ft. BTFC Advisory Board Member x Golden Globe Award-winning Writer/Director, Kemp Powers
Join us for this exclusive virtual conversation!
On Tuesday, December 5th at 8PM ET/ 5PM PT, join us at the virtual table for The Download with Kemp Powers, BTFC Advisory Board Member xGolden Globe Award winning and Academy nominated Writer/Director ofSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse andSoul.
We’re discussing what it takes to become a dynamic, multi-hyphenated creative with “writer’s wisdom and a director’s heart”. Powers was named one of VARIETY’s 2020 “10 Screenwriters to Watch.” Powers wrote the critically acclaimed Amazon feature, One Night in Miami…, adapted from his 2013 award-winning stage play of the same name. He is also the co-director and a screenwriter of Disney/Pixar’s Academy Award-nominated animated feature Soul with which Powers made history as the first Black person to receive a director or screenwriter credit on any Pixar project. This year Powers was tapped by Sony Pictures Animation to direct the sequel to the Oscar-winning animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, along with Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
If you have dreams of becoming a dynamic creative on stage, in television or film, you do not want to miss this event!
Join us and get the information and inspiration you need to #MakeYourWork!
Meet Kemp Powers
Prior to his work on stage, television and film, Powers was a journalist for 17 years. His stage plays include the award-winning One Night in Miami…, Little Black Shadows, Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue, The Two Reds and A Negro by Choice. The 2016 production of One Night in Miami... at London’s Donmar Warehouse earned Powers an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play. One Night’s Los Angeles world premiere won the production three LA Drama Critics Circle Awards and four NAACP Theatre Awards, as well as the 2013 Ted Schmitt Award for Outstanding New Play for Powers. Kemp’s most recent stage play, The XIXth (The Nineteenth) premiered at The Old Globe in San Diego, March 2023. Previously, Powers wrote for the popular CBS All Access series, Star Trek: Discovery.
Kemp Powers is a Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, playwright, producer and director who was named one of VARIETY’s 2020 “10 Screenwriters to Watch.” He is also the co-director and a screenwriter of Disney/Pixar’s Academy Award-nominated animated feature Soul, which centers around a middle-school band teacher whose life hasn’t quite gone the way he expected. When he finds himself in another realm helping someone else find their passion, he discovers what it truly means to have soul. Powers makes history with Soul, as the first Black person to receive a director or screenwriter credit on any Pixar project. The film, which was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival and premiered to rave reviews at the London Film Festival, introduces Pixar’s first Black protagonist and features the voices of Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Daveed Diggs and Angela Bassett, among others. INDIEWIRE called the film “one of the studio’s very best.” Soul debuted on Disney+ on December 25, receiving Golden Globe Awards for “Best Animated Film” and “Best Original Score,” three Critics’ Choice Super Awards for “Best Animated Movie” and for two of its voice actors and was also selected for the AFI Awards’ list of “Movies of the Year.” The film received six NAACP Image Award nominations, including “Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture” for Powers, and won for “Outstanding Animated Motion Picture.” The film also won a PGA Award.
Powers wrote the critically acclaimed Amazon feature,One Night in Miami…, adapted from his 2013 award-winning stage play of the same name. This drama tells a fictional account of one evening in which Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X celebrate Ali’s win over Sonny Liston in 1964. Directed by Regina King (in her directorial debut) and starring Eli Goree, Leslie Odom, Jr., Aldis Hodge and Kingsley Ben-Adir, One Night in Miami… debuted to critical acclaim at the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals, before it opened in select theaters on December 25 and launched on Amazon Prime Video on January 15. This “skillful adaptation” (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER) sits at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Powers was nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ on behalf of his work on the film. In addition to being selected as one of AFI Awards’ “Movies of the Year,” the film has also garnered a WGA Award nomination for Powers, four NAACP Image Award nominations including “Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture” for Powers and “Outstanding Motion Picture” for the film, six Critics Choice Award nominations including “Best Adapted Screenplay” for Powers and “Best Picture” for the film, three Golden Globe nominations and a PGA Award nomination.
Powers was tapped by Sony Pictures Animation to direct the sequel to the Oscar-winning animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, along with Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson. Returning producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller said “Kemp’s work is incisive and ambitious and funny — with a writer’s wisdom and a director’s heart — he just knows what matters in every scene.” The critically acclaimed film surpassed expectations at the box office by besting the original, becoming the highest-grossing debut for SPA, the highest-grossing SPA animated film ever, and the highest earning animated comic book ever.
The Download
Offered multiple times a year, The Download is a special virtual guest conversation series hosted by the Black TV & Film Collective. It features impactful filmmakers who provide insider knowledge to help Black creatives do their work. Recent guests on The Download have included Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, Charlene Polite Corley, the editing team of A Black Lady Sketch Show, Janine Sherman Barrois and Pete Chatmon.
#MakeYourWork
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