A Ballerina’s Tale

Nelson George is an author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic with a long career in analyzing and presenting the diverse elements of African-American culture. Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie Life Support, a critically-acclaimed drama about the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in Nelson’s native Brooklyn, New York. He co-edited, with Alan Leeds, The James Brown Reader (Plume), a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Since 2013, Nelson has completed documentary projects VH1's Rock Docs, Finding the Funk, Showtime's Brooklyn Boheme (which was supported by Kickstarter), ESPN's The Announcement, and the short All Hail the Beat for the Focus Forward campaign.

Leslie Norville is an Emmy® Award-winning producer. Her work is spurred by a passion to tell untold and nuanced stories about people of color. Recent projects include The First Wave and the forthcoming series Black Life: Untold Stories.. She is an alum of the Sundance Documentary Creative Producing Fellowship.