EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams has inked with Cinetic Media.

Williams is an Oscar, Emmy and Peabody award-winning director, producer, writer, and the first African-American director to win an Academy Award with his short film Music By Prudence. He was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the International Documentary Association, The San Francisco Film Society, The Miami Film Festival, and the Maverick Award from the Woodstock Film Festival.  He also was awarded an honorary doctorate from Lafayette College.   

Williams documentary work includes Life, Animated, which won the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award along with three Emmys. He was nominated for an Academy Award for God Loves Uganda, which was shortlisted for an Oscar, The Apollo which won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary, Stamped From The Beginning for Netflix; The 1619 Project which won the Primetime Emmy for nonfiction series, and The Supermodels for Apple TV+.

Williams first narrative feature, Cassandro, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently released globally by Amazon Prime Video. The pic starred Gael Garcia Bernal in the title role as the ”exotico” character created by Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso who rose to international stardom.

Williams is currently working on his next project, the narrative feature, Strange Arrivals, starring Oscar nominee Demi Moore and 2x Oscar nominee Colman Domingo. 

The filmmaker currently sits on the board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences representing the Documentary Branch.

Williams remains repped by WME and Granderson Des Rochers.