T. Nicole Atkinson

Producer, Director, Editor T. Nicole Atkinson has been working in documentary production for almost a decade. Her first independent project, Word of Mouth, received a student Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, was screened at a variety of film festivals and broadcast on PBS throughout the United States and internationally in Israel, South Africa and Ireland. Completed in 1991, Word of Mouth, tells the story of five young black men who struggle to overcome the obstacles of inner city life--drugs, crime, and poverty--through rap music.

Atkinson later went on to work with the late Emmy award winning director Marlon Riggs. She most recently worked as Co-Producer of Rigg's last film Black Is. . . Black Ain't, a feature length documentary on African American identity. Completed after Riggs untimely death, Black Is. . . Black Ain'treceived The Filmmaker's Trophy Award at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, Best Overall Film and Best Documentary at Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Inc, a Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival among others. She also worked with Rigg's on the Peabody Award-winning documentary, Color Adjustment, as Production Assistant, Assistant Editor and Researcher and as Associate Producer and Editor on the award winning film about HIV disclosure in the black community, entitled Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret).

Lockin' Up, Atkinson's latest work was completed in October of 1997. This half-hour documentary combines conversations, personal narrative and interviews into a compelling exploration of the social and political significance of dreadlocks in African American culture. Lockin' Up recently received 3rd Prize in the Documentary category from Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc.

Atkinson, who graduated with a Masters Degree in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley (1991) has an extensive background teaching video production. She has worked with the SAY Project, San Francisco and the City of Oakland's Park and Recreations Department, teaching video storytelling to students as young as 5 years old at a variety of schools throughout the Bay Area.

Between 1995 and 1997, Atkinson served on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in the Graduate School of Journalism where she taught television news/documentary production. She currently teaches in the Motion Picture Television Department at Academy of Art College in San Francisco.

Lockin’ Up
A film by T. Nicole Atkinson, 1997, 29 min., Color
When Jamaican-born filmmaker T. Nicole Atkinson threw away her comb to let her hair coil into dreadlocks, she was forced to challenge both society’s a...