Yoruba Richen

Yoruba Richen is a Peabody award winning documentary filmmaker who was awarded the Trailblazer award by Black Public Media.  Her work has been featured on multiple outlets, including Netflix, MSNBC, FX/Hulu, HBO and PBS. Her latest film, American Coup: Wilmington 1898 premiered on PBS’s American Experience in November.  Her film about the long struggle for reparations, The Cost of Inheritance, premiered on PBS’s America Reframe in 2024.  Yoruba’s previous film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks was the first feature documentary about the pioneering activist and was honored by the Television Academy and won a Gracie Award.  It is currently streaming on Peacock.  Other recent work include the Emmy-nominated films American Reckoning (Frontline),  How It Feels to Be Free (American Masters), The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show (Peacock) and Green Book: Guide to Freedom (Smithsonian Channel).  Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor (HULU/FX) won an NAACP Image Award and her previous films, The New Black and Promised Land won multiple festival awards before airing on PBS’s Independent Lens and P.O.V.

Yoruba’s other work include co-directing the recent 4-part ID series The Fall of Diddy, directing an episode of the award-winning series Black and Missing for HBO and High on the Hog for Netflix.  She is a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow, and she won the Creative Promise Award at Tribeca All Access.  Yoruba was a Sundance Producers Fellow and Women’s Fellow and is a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker’s Award.  She is a featured TED Speaker and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science (AMPAS) and the Director’s Guild of America (DGA).  Yoruba is the Founding Director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.