Phillip Youmans (born February 18, 2000) is an American filmmaker. He is the first African-American director to win the Founders Prize at

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...

, which he received for his 2019 directorial debut, ''

Burning Cane ''Burning Cane'' is a 2019 American drama film written and directed by Phillip Youmans in his feature directorial debut. The film stars Wendell Pierce, Karen Kaia Livers, Dominique McClellan and Braelyn Kelly. Set in rural Louisiana, we follow He ...

''.

Early life and education

Youmans was born and raised in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. He first became interested in film-making when he was 13. Youmans attended two high schools through a dual enrollment program: Benjamin Franklin High School and

New Orleans Center for Creative Arts New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, or NOCCA, is the regional, pre-professional arts training center for high school students in Louisiana. NOCCA opened in 1973 as a professional arts training center for secondary education, secondary schoo ...

. He completed his freshman year at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

in May 2019. In October 2019 he stated he may drop out of the program to focus on his career.

Career

Youmans wrote, shot, directed and edited his first feature-length film, ''

,'' as a senior in high school, when he was 17. The film grew from a short film that Youmans wrote called ''The Glory''. It tells the story of a woman (played by Karen Kaia Livers) in rural Louisiana and her relationships with her alcoholic son and a local preacher. It also stars and was co-produced by

Wendell Pierce Wendell Edward Pierce (born December 8, 1962) is an American actor and businessman. Having trained at Juilliard School, Pierce rose to prominence as a character actor of stage and screen. He first Breakthrough role, gained recognition portraying ...

. Raised

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

, Youmans stated that the goal of ''Burning Cane'' was to "touch on [] how rigid religious conviction can be within the rural South, especially under sort of rigid interpretation of Protestantism." Youmans financed the film with $2500 in personal savings, an

Indiegogo Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...

campaign, and donations from friends and family. ''Burning Cane'' won the Founders Prize and the prize for best cinematography in a U.S. narrative feature film at the 2019

. Youmans is the first African-American director to receive the Founders Prize; he is also the youngest director to have a film accepted to the Tribeca Film Festival. Youmans announced that he is currently developing his next feature film, which will focus on "the

Black Panther A black panther is the Melanism, melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical Rosette (zoology), rosettes are al ...

chapter in New Orleans during 1978."

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Youmans, Phillip 2000 births Living people African-American film directors 21st-century American male actors Mass media people from New Orleans African-American screenwriters Male actors from Louisiana 21st-century American writers 21st-century African-American writers