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FILMMAKERF

Yolonda Ross is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, director, and actor whose work is known for its emotional depth, intimate character studies, and stories that illuminate the lives of people often left unseen. Her work consistently explores identity, resilience, family, and the quiet complexities of human connection.
 

Ross made her television directing debut directing an episode of Showtime’s critically acclaimed series The Chi, where she also starred for eight seasons as Jada Washington. She previously wrote for Showtime’s American Gigolo, further expanding her work as a storyteller across multiple disciplines.

Her first directorial project, the short music film Breaking Night, which she also wrote and produced, aired nationally on MTV and VH1 Classics. She later served as executive producer on the award-winning short film Walk for Me.
 

As an actor, Ross is a two-time Independent Spirit Award nominee and Gotham Award winner whose career spans more than two decades across film, television, and theater. Her credits include HBO’s Stranger Inside, John Sayles’s Go for Sisters, Treme, The Get Down, How to Get Away with Murder, American Gigolo, and The Chi. She has worked with filmmakers including Cheryl Dunye, John Sayles, Denzel Washington, David Mamet, Angela Bassett, and Baz Luhrmann. (⁠Film Independent)

 

Yolonda\ is currently developing a slate of original film and television projects as writer, director, and producer, including the feature, Scenes From Our Marriage,  the series Gotta Keep Running, Ashland, Tiny Eve, and Frank Guyton for President. Across all of her work, she is drawn to stories that reveal the extraordinary humanity within ordinary lives and create space for voices too rarely centered on screen.

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