When lifelong Chicagoan and Sisters in Cinema Founder and CEO Yvonne Welbon started her Master of Fine Arts in film and video program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1991 she knew the name of only one African American woman director, Julie Dash.
“When I asked one of my professors to help me find others, they said, ‘Maybe you are the second one,’” said Welbon. “I didn’t believe it, so I set out to find my sisters in cinema.”
Welbon began researching Black women directors “who had come before me and who my contemporaries were. This was before the internet, so finding this information was not easy.”
She ultimately founded the Sisters in Cinema website in 1997 to be a resource for and about Black women directors.
“What began as my own search for community, history, and artistic lineage grew into a much larger project of documenting, preserving, celebrating, and supporting the work of Black women filmmakers,” Welbon said.
Her dream of uplifting Black women directors has grown to include the Sisters in Cinema Media Arts Center (the Center) at 2310 E. 75th St., which she opened in 2024 in the historic South Shore Chicago neighborhood where she grew up.
The Center is a 5,000-square-foot, “fully accessible hub for creativity, learning and community,” said Welbon. It boasts portrait, poster and video galleries; a “cozy” 34-seat theater and lounge; a creative lab and a conference room, which also houses an archive exhibit.
Sisters in Cinema’s purpose is much more than just a building for Welbon. It is a welcoming gathering place for the local community, filmmakers, artists and anyone who has a love for media and storytelling.
The organization offers free workshops, courses and screenings in addition to year-round programming “designed to make the media arts accessible to everyone. We want Sisters in Cinema to be a place where people learn, create, connect and see themselves and their stories reflected.”
Welbon’s desire to put Sisters in Cinema in the heart of South Shore stems from her love of her neighborhood, which she calls a “special and beautiful place” with Lake Michigan to the east, “gorgeous homes, the South Shore Cultural Center, Jackson Park, the marina, two golf courses and so much more.
She added, “South Shore has shaped who I am in ways I probably didn’t fully understand when I was growing up. It nurtured my curiosity, my imagination, and my belief in the power of community. It’s home.”
Her academic achievements include Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, Vassar College in New York, where she got her B.A. in history, the AFI Directing Workshop for Women and her Ph.D. in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University.
Welbon sees her 2001 dissertation, Sisters in Cinema: Case Studies of Three First-Time Achievements Made by African American Women Directors in the 1990s; her 2003 documentary Sisters in Cinema: A History of African American Women Feature Film Directors; the co-edited book Sisters in the Life: A History of Out African American Lesbian Media-making; and the Sisters in Cinema archive as a part of one long continuum.
“My dissertation allowed me to deeply research and write the first history of Black women film directors,” said Welbon. “The Sisters in Cinema documentary widened the reach of this history to a much broader audience. Sisters in the Life expanded this work by becoming the first academic text to document the history of out Black lesbian media makers.
“The archive preserves and makes this history accessible, while founding Sisters in Cinema as a nonprofit in 2014 allowed me to move from documenting the work to building the infrastructure needed to actively support the next generation of filmmakers. The work has evolved over time, but the central question has remained the same: How do we make sure our stories, our filmmakers, and our histories are seen, taught, supported, preserved, and remembered.”
Welbon has also produced and distributed dozens of award-winning films through her Our Film Works company, of which she is president, including Living With Pride: Ruth Ellis @100.
She is most excited however about a Sisters in Cinema-supported documentary project, Finding Your Laughter, co-directed by Arlieta Hall and Brittany Alsot, which had its world premiere at the BlackStar Film Festival this year and received a Jury Award Honorable Mention for Best Documentary. The first free community screening Chicago premiere is Thursday, Oct. 15 at 7:00 p.m. at Kennedy-King College as part of the Chicago International Film Festival.
Currently, Welbon is serving as executive producer for Christina Ifubaraboye’s environmental justice documentary PÜLÖ and producing Luchina Fisher’s Hiding in Plain Sight documentary about the history of Black queer and trans presence in music. As a Black lesbian, she is also excited about being back in the director’s chair for her Black Lesbian Writers Room hybrid documentary.
“These projects are very different from one another, but all of them reflect my continued commitment to supporting powerful Black stories and the filmmakers who bring them to life,” said Welbon.
To honor all of Welbon’s achievements, she was inducted into Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame in 2016. Welbon said it means a great deal to her because Chicago has been central to her personal and creative life.
“So much of my work has been about making Black lesbian lives, histories and creative contributions visible,” said Welbon. “To have my work recognized by my own city was deeply meaningful. I also see the honor as connected to a much larger community of people whose work created the possibilities which my generation inherited
Welbon said it’s vital for LGBTQ+ people to build their own spaces which reflect their values, experiences and communities.
“Queerness isn’t an afterthought; it’s part of the vision, the culture and the business plan,” she said. “We create jobs, preserve culture, circulate resources within our communities and build places where people can gather and feel a genuine sense of belonging. For me, ownership is also about agency. We have greater power to decide what gets supported, whose stories get told, where resources flow, and what kind of future we want to build.”
