BLACK IS...BLACK AIN'T

Biographies

Marlon T. Riggs: Producer/Director
The late Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Marlon Riggs established a reputation for his insightful and controversial films that confront racism and homophobia. Riggs's first major work, Ethnic Notions (1987) received a National Emmy Award. Riggs went on to produce, direct, and edit the video documentary Tongues Untied (1989). This controversial but internationally acclaimed program was awarded a blue ribbon in the American Film and Video Festival, Best Video in the New York Documentary Festival, and Best Experimental Video in the San Francisco International Film and Video Festival. Tongues Untied has been broadcast on PBS (as part of P.O.V.), the BBC, and Barcelona Television. Riggs then produced and directed the award winning Affirmations (1990) and Anthem (1991).

As producer, director, and writer of the feature-length documentary Color Adjustment (1991), Riggs was honored with the 1992 Erik Barnouw Award and The International Documentary Association's Distinguished Documentary Achievement Award. Broadcast on PBS, Color Adjustment has also been widely screened abroad. In 1992, Riggs completed Non, Je Ne Regrette Rein (No Regret) named Juror's Choice at the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, Best "Black Experience" Film/Video at the 8th Annual Black International Cinema Festival, and Best Cultural Affairs Documentary by the National Black Programming Consortium's Prized Pieces Festival.

On April 5, 1994, Marlon Riggs died of complications due to AIDS. At the time he was in the process of completing what became his final film. BLACK IS...BLACK AIN'T, a feature-length exploration of African American identity, was finished by his production team seven months after his death.

Nicole Atkinson: Co-Producer
Nicole Atkinson began working with Marlon Riggs in 1990 on the Peabody Award-winning documentary Color Adjustment. She later worked as an editor and associate producer on his award winning Non, Je Ne Regrette Rein (No Regret) (1992). Herself a noted filmmaker, Atkinson produced, directed, and edited the award-winning documentary Word of Mouth (1991). Atkinson is currently in post-production on Lockin' Up, a short film examining the politics of dreadlocks in the African American community, and in pre-production on The Middle Passage, an experimental documentary that looks at the impact of slavery on American culture.

Christiane Badgley: Co-Director/Editor
Christiane Badgley first worked with Marlon Riggs on Tongues Untied in 1988 and went on to edit Riggs's next work Affirmations in 1990. Badgley co-directed and edited two documentaries: The Shrine (1990) and Into the Great Tribulation (1993). She is currently in pre-production on her next film, Africa: Made in the U.S.A., a feature-length examination of the pernicious effect of American television and pop culture on the economy and culture of Ghana.

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