Jamaican director Isabella Issa’s short film Yellow Girl and Me has been racking up several awards at the Black Film Festival of New Orleans, getting Best Director, Best Writer, Best Film and Best Actress. The film has also been selected for the Toronto Black Film Festival and the feature length screenplay made it to the second round (of two) of the Sundance Screenwriter’s Development Lab and is getting interests from other producers.
Inspired by Issa’s real life friend, Nicole Robertson, the film tells the story of abuse of her and her older sister-guardian, and Nicole’s own battle with losing her hearing. Yellow Girl and Me was developed as a thesis project to complete Issa’s Master of Fine Arts in Directing at the American Film Conservatory and was then selected for production. It has since premiered in Los Angeles and recently in Kingston. Issa is working on her second feature script, a coming-of-age drama about Jamaican schoolgirls.