MEET STEPHEN WINTER
“I would like to offer (and receive!) a mentee the same thing I received from my mentors—experience, encouragement, advise and new ways of seeing the work. Hold the work up, turn it around, discuss it, refract it in the light, continue forward, rinse and repeat.”
Stephen Winter’s debut feature film Chocolate Babies (1996) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won awards at Frameline, SXSW, UrbanWorld and OutFest. It is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. Stephen’s second feature Jason and Shirley (2015) was called “one of the year’s finest” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker) and played AGO in Toronto and MoMA in New York. Stephen produced the landmark documentary Tarnation (2004, Jonathan Caouette). Other film collaborations include Lee Daniels, Allen Hughes, Xan Cassavetes, Howard Gertler and John Cameron Mitchell. Stephen co-created and directed the pioneering 2018 afro-futuristic satire “Adventures in New America,” which the New York Times compared to Boots Riley and Jordan Peele, He wrote the Spotify documentary Sound Barrier: Sylvester and directed the upcoming science-fiction drama The Space Within for Audible and Topic Studios starring Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Shannon, Bobby Canavale, Shea Whigham and Carmen Ejogo.
Work
mentor profile
Queer|Art|Mentorship will be accepting applications from emerging artists across the country. Are you open to working with someone remotely, or would you prefer they are based in the same city as you?
“Remote is fine.”
What interests you about mentoring?
“I love the process of getting to know emerging artists through their work and learning more about the world as a result.”
Given your experience and interests, what kind of emerging artist do you feel best positioned to support?
“A narrative filmmaker with vision, humor and zest for life who is working to excel within yet elevate the next levels of narrative film.”
As a mentor, what would you like to offer an emerging artist? What would you like to receive?
“I would like to offer (and receive!) a mentee the same thing I received from my mentors—experience, encouragement, advise and new ways of seeing the work. Hold the work up, turn it around, discuss it, refract it in the light, continue forward, rinse and repeat.”
Have you had mentors of your own? Who have they been?
“So many! Including Marlon Riggs, Abbey Lincoln, James Lyons, Lee Daniels, John Cameron Mitchell, and Ortez Alderson.”