Michèle Stephenson is an Emmy-winning filmmaker, author, and immersive media artist who uses non-fiction storytelling to explore race, identity, and systemic injustice across the Americas and the Black diaspora.

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With her spouse, Joe Brewster, Stephenson co-founded the Rada Film Group, producing award-winning films and media projects from their base in Brooklyn. Their landmark documentary American Promise (2013), which followed their son and his friend through 13 years at a Manhattan prep school, received the Special Jury Prize at Sundance and aired nationally on POV. The film inspired the co-authored companion book Promises Kept: Raising Black Boys to Succeed in School and in Life, which addresses the educational challenges facing Black youth.

Stephenson’s bold approach to filmmaking incorporates experimental and immersive techniques that challenge conventional documentary forms. Her film Elena (2018) is a hybrid work that explores generational trauma and Afro-Caribbean identity through a deeply personal lens. Her 2020 film Stateless was critically acclaimed for its examination of anti-Black policies in the Dominican Republic, and in 2021, she co-directed The Changing Same, a VR trilogy exploring cycles of racial terror in America through magical realism. The project won the Grand Jury Prize at Tribeca and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media.

In 2023, she co-directed Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was shortlisted for the Oscars. That same year, she co-directed Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, a documentary exploring Black girlhood through the cultural legacy of hand games, which won multiple awards, including the Edward R. Murrow Award.

A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Stephenson has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, Creative Capital Award, the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, and the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award. She continues to break new ground in nonfiction cinema and immersive storytelling, expanding how Black stories are told through film, virtual reality, and hybrid media.