New Door Creative

BEFORE THE AMERICAS
Currently On View

Distributor, educator and champion of Black Independent Film, Michelle Materre was born on May 12, 1954. She promoted Black women’s voices in film and released important independent movies by Black filmmakers for over 40 years,

In 1992, Materre co-founded one of the first Black-owned film distribution companies, KJM3 Entertainment Group. Her company worked on distribution for major films; one of its first projects was the marketing of Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust.” Widely viewed as a masterpiece of Black independent cinema and said to have been the first feature film by a Black woman to have a wide release, “Daughters of the Dust” was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 2004.

In addition, Materre curated Creatively Speaking, a film series dedicated to women filmmakers and people of color. Her most noted series were “Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York: 1968-1986” and “One Way or Another: Black Women’s Cinema, 1970-1991,” with the latter being listed in The New Yorker as “The Most Important Repertory Series of 2017.”

Michelle Materre died on March 11, 2022 in White Plains, New York, she was 67. Michelle was a longtime friend of BHMD's executive producer Neema Barnette.