Roger Ross Williams
When documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams showed his film Music by Prudence at Mountainfilm in 2009, the audience fell in love with 21-year-old Prudence Mabhena, a disabled singer-songwriter who beats enormous odds to overcome poverty and discrimination. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Williams is the first African American director to win an Academy Award in the category of Documentary Shorts and the first African American director to win an Academy Award for directing and producing a film, short or long. His film God Loves Uganda played at Mountainfilm in 2013. Williams is the director of the film Life, Animated (Mountainfilm 2016), a powerful story of the way movies connect and unite people and families.