Prepare to see more Black female film critics at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019.

Recipients for the sixth annual Roger Ebert Fellowship at the Sundance Institute were announced today and all of the recipients were Black women!

For those unfamiliar, the Roger Ebert Fellowship is a workshop that brings together emerging film writers, critics and filmmakers for mentorship by both the Sundance Film Festival and RogerEbert.com.

The partnership is “an extraordinary opportunity for them to navigate the fast-paced, deadline-driven environment of one of the world’s premiere film festivals. They will write reviews and features under the tutelage of editors at RogerEbert.com, while networking with industry professionals like directors, actors, film critics, festival programmers, agents, distributors and publicists.”

Recipients for the fellowship this year include ReBecca Theodore-Vachon, a film and TV critic who has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times and more. She is the creator and host of the podcast, The Spectrum Lounge. Other recipients include Whitney A. Spencer, a Kentucky native currently in the midst of completing a master’s degree in Critical Ethnic Studies at DePaul University and Niani Scott, a sophomore majoring in Journalism and minoring in Political Science and African Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Congrats to them and we can’t wait to read their work!

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Whitney A. Spencer

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