Keisha Rae
Witherspoon
She // Her // Hers
[ID: A portrait of a woman seated on an orange velvet couch. She looks out at the viewer, posture erect and poised. Her dark hair is pulled back, with wisps of curls radiating around her face. She wears long earrings and a sleeveless textured white top that is splashed with bursts of ambient sunlight.]
Miami, FL
2022 USA Fellow
This award was generously supported by Katie Weitz, PhD.
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Keisha Rae Witherspoon is a sci-fi, fantasy, and documentary filmmaker. Witherspoon was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent film 2020” and the inaugural grantee of the Lynn Shelton “Of a Certain Age” Grant for women.
Her first short film, T, a hybrid doc-style narrative set in her hometown of Miami, won the 2020 Golden Bear at Berlinale; screened at Sundance, AFI, and New Directors/New films, among others; and won audience awards for best short at the BlackStar and New Orleans film festivals. T and 1968<2018>2068, another of her hybrid shorts, are part of the Criterion Channel’s Afrofuturism program.
She is cofounder of the Third Horizon film Festival, a Caribbean film, art, and music festival presented annually in Miami. It was rated one of the top 25 coolest film festivals by MovieMaker in 2019 and 2021.
Witherspoon is currently writing her first feature film—a Black sci-fi story, also set in Miami; it has received early support from Cinereach, Sundance, and SFFILM/Westridge.
Portrait photo courtesy of the artist.
1968 <2018> 2068, 2018. Film still.[ID: A black-and-white photograph of a black man. Superimposed over his face is a black triangle and two concentric circles moving out from the center. His nose and mouth are framed inside the triangle, while his eyes are framed at the top of the circle.]