Chinonye Chukwu Biography
Chinonye Chukwu is a Nigerian-American film director best known for his work on the drama Clemency. She is the first black woman to win the Sundance Dramatic Grand Jury Prize.
How old is Chinonye Chukwu? – Age
She is 36 years old as of 19 May 2021. She was born in 1985 in Nigeria.
Chinonye Chukwu Family
Her family relocated to Oklahoma when she was just over a year old, and then to Fairbanks, Alaska when she was six. They traveled to Nigeria frequently. Chukwu struggled to fit in as a child in Alaska because she was often the only person of color in her classes. Throughout her childhood, she struggled with depression, which was exacerbated by Alaska’s limited winter daylight.
Chinonye Chukwu Husband
Chukwu has not revealed her marital status to the public. It is not known whether she is married, engaged, single, or dating.
Chinonye Chukwu Education
She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from DePauw University, where she was a member of Zeta Phi Beta. She then enrolled at Temple University for film school.
Chinonye Chukwu Net Worth
She has not revealed her wealth records making it difficult to estimate her net worth.
Chinonye Chukwu Career
She read Maya Angelou and joined a weight-lifting club to cope. Chukwu has always wanted to make films. Throughout her adolescence, she carried a journal in which she jotted down ideas for films and music videos. She frequently wrote stories about Nigerian-American girls reuniting with lost loves or siblings. Chukwu directed The Dance Lesson in 2010, about a young black girl attempting to become a ballerina in an increasingly gentrified neighborhood. Alaska-Land, her first feature film, told the story of two estranged Nigerian-American brothers and sisters who reunite in their hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. Every festival and lab program she applied to rejected the film.
She directed A Long Walk, a short film about a child who is publicly mocked by his father, in 2013. Chukwu wrote and directed Clemency in 2019. The death row drama stars Alfre Woodard as a prison warden coping with the demands of her job and Aldis Hodge as one of her inmates facing execution. Her film was inspired by the case of Troy Davis, a prisoner executed in 2011. She relocated to Los Angeles in 2017 to film the film. She was the first black woman to receive the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2019. Chukwu is set to direct A Taste Of Power, a film based on Elaine Brown’s memoir.