Filmmakers

They came from Watts. They came from New York City. They came from throughout America or crossed an ocean from Africa. At a unique time and place in American history, a critical mass of filmmakers of African descent came to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television to make movies and produced a rich, innovative, sustained, and intellectually rigorous body of work. The filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion achieved this while realizing a new possibility for “Black” cinema, one that explored and related to the real lives of Black communities in the U.S. and worldwide.

Learn more about the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s ongoing “L.A. Rebellion” inititiative.
Thomas Penick Thomas Penick

Thomas Penick is a writer and film editor. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Penick attended UCLA to study screenwriting and received his B.A. in Theater Arts/Motion Pictures in 1971.  He directed the short, 69...

Monona Wali Monona Wali

Monona Wali received an M.F.A. from UCLA Film School in 1983 where she earned the Lynn Weston Memorial Prize. Her thesis film Grey Area was featured in many film festivals around the world, and was distributed by the Black Filmmaker...

Robert Wheaton Robert Wheaton

Robert Wheaton is a writer-director and a graduate of UCLA’s film school. He produced the short films A Little Off Mark (1986) and At the Bus Stop (1991). His more recent work includes The Making of Green Dragon (2002...

No image Iverson White

Filmmaker and educator Iverson White was born in Detroit, Michigan. After obtaining his BA in communications from Wayne State University, White joined the Graduate Repertory Company at the University of New Orleans. He later earned his MFA in...

Billy Woodberry Billy Woodberry

Born in Dallas, Texas, Billy Woodberry is an independent filmmaker who has taught at the School of Film/Video and the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts since 1989. His feature film Bless Their Little Hearts (1984) is...