Channing Godfrey Peoples
American
Writer, director, producer
2013 ― present
Neil Creque Williams
1
Early life and education[edit]
Peoples was raised on the south side of Fort Worth in what she referred to as "Black Texas".[3][4][5] Her family regularly attended Black theatre performances, which influenced Peoples to read classic Black literature by writers such as Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor.[6]
She received her bachelor's degree in theater from Baylor University and her master of fine arts degree from University of Southern California.[4][6]
Career[edit]
Miss Juneteenth[edit]
Peoples began writing Miss Juneteenth in 2013, shortly after completing film school.[7] She was inspired to write the film because she grew up attending Juneteenth celebrations and Miss Juneteenth pageants and the holiday holds great significance for her.[3] She attended the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and other writing workshops to continue to develop the screenplay.[1] When the film was in pre-production, Peoples was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2018.[2] Miss Juneteenth, also Peoples' directorial debut, premiered at Sundance 2020 and was released VOD on Juneteenth of that year.[3][8] The film received critical acclaim and holds a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[9]
She cites Julie Dash, Jonathan Demme, and her mentor Charles Burnett as influences.[7]
Other work[edit]
Peoples wrote two episodes of the third season of Queen Sugar.[6][10]
In January 2021 it was announced that Peoples signed a first look deal with Universal Content Productions.[11] Her first scheduled project is to create a television adaptation of Miss Juneteenth.[11]
Peoples' wrote and directed the short film Doretha's Blues, which debuted at SXSW in 2021.[12] The movie stars Tonea Stewart and follows "a former musician whose son was killed by police and who can no longer find it in her to sing."[13] She was inspired to write Doretha's Blues in the aftermath of Michael Brown's death, as she was interested in the lives of the family left behind.[12] Like Miss Juneteenth, the film is set in Fort Worth, Texas.[14]