Ayoka Chenzira

Spelman College

Dr. Ayoka Chenzira is an Emmy and NAACP nominated television director and an award-winning pioneer in Black American independent cinema. She is one of the first African American women to write, produce and direct a 35 mm feature film, Alma’s Rainbow, and an animated film, Hair Piece: a film for nappy-headed people, which in 2018 was inducted into the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Her early films recently received 4K restorations by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive and the Film Foundation. As the Division Chair of the Arts at Spelman College, Dr. Chenzira collaborated with President Mary Schmidt Campbell to reimagine the arts, creating documentary filmmaking and photography programs and the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective. Dr. Chenzira has directed television episodes of Queen Sugar, Trinkets, Greenleaf, Dynasty, Delilah, A League of Their Own, 4400, Kindred and Beacon23.