Maya Washington

rdf:langString Maya Washington

rdf:langString Maya Washington is an American filmmaker, actress, playwright, poet, writer, visualist, and arts educator. With a bachelor of arts in theatre from the University of Southern California and an master of fine arts in creative writing from Hamline University, Washington has garnered awards fromJerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Minnesota Film and Television, and many more. Her scholarship and creative projects approach issues of diversity and inclusion. Her film work has had a global reach, in Toronto, Budapest, Hong Kong, Berlin, and Rome. She wrote and directed the 2011 short film White Space starring Ryan Lane, a selection of African American Short Films syndicated series, which follows the life of a deaf performance poet, and was featured as an official selection in over two dozen film festivals, winning many awards. She produced and starred in Life Coach Chronicles (2013), an award-winning web series about friends and families, their circumstances, and their situations from writer and director Freda C. Hobbs. She wrote, directed, and starred in the award-winning short film Clear (2018) about an exoneree reconnecting with her daughter after serving 16 years for a crime she did not commit. In 2018, Washington released her first feature-length documentary, Through the Banks of the Red Cedar, premiering at the Detroit Free Press Freep Film Festival. The film follows the 50-year legacy of Washington's father, Minnesota Vikings wide-receiver Gene Washington, on his journey from the segregated south to Michigan State University, where his teammates and he, led by head coach Duffy Daugherty, played on the first fully racially integrated college football teams, the 1965 and 1966 Spartans football teams.