Charles Burnett

CTL-E-6197 · Person · other · 1944–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07394 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6197.

Charles Burnett is an American independent filmmaker, writer, and director born in Mississippi and raised in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences records that he wrote, directed, produced, photographed, and edited his first feature, Killer of Sheep, in 1977 — a portrait of a slaughterhouse worker and his family in Watts that the MacArthur Foundation notes the Library of Congress designated as one of twenty-five significant motion pictures included in the National Film Registry in 1990. Burnett had received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1988. His features include My Brother's Wedding (1983), To Sleep with Anger (1990) — which the MacArthur Foundation describes as the story of three generations of a middle-class African American family in Los Angeles disrupted by a mysterious visitor — The Glass Shield, and Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation, alongside documentaries and television films including Nightjohn, Selma, Lord, Selma, and Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property. He took degrees at Los Angeles City College and at UCLA, earning his M.F.A. in 1973. In 2017 the Academy presented him an Honorary Award Oscar at its Governors Awards, and the Associated Press interviewed him in April 2025, at eighty-one, for the 4K restoration of Killer of Sheep.

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 5 — 747 Program, Wave 12; fifth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A hand-check (2026-10-16) against live graph (3,843 entities): no 'Charles Burnett' or 'Killer of Sheep' entity by exact name, alias, or token search in the live graph. Killer of Sheep is staged in this same packet as CTL-E-6169 (companion batch), not homed live. No home; CTL-E-6197 is new. Subtype 'other': schema Person subtypes contain no filmmaker subtype; 'other' follows the brief and peer filmmaker treatment. Supply: Supply: 747 Supply Ledger Tier 4 scan-tail reserve banked by Scan Tail Wave 4, corpus-gap-candidates rank #2260. Ledger supplied the name only; every fact herein is sourced to an opened source (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: 747 Supply Ledger Tier 4 scan-tail reserve, corpus-gap candidate rank #2260, banked by Scan Tail Wave 4; Batch D, Scan Tail Wave 5. Scope: foundational Black independent filmmaker of the L.A. Rebellion generation. Vital status: LIVING — confirmed from a dated source: Associated Press interview and portrait sitting with Burnett in New York on Apr. 19, 2025, reporting him as 81 and discussing the 4K restoration of Killer of Sheep (via SHOOTonline, accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS — Production figure (sourced, dated): Killer of Sheep was shot on black-and-white 16mm for less than $10,000 (Associated Press, Apr. 2025). Completion-date CONFLICT SHOWN: the Academy and the MacArthur Foundation date Killer of Sheep to 1977; the Associated Press (Apr. 2025) reports it was completed in 1978 as Burnett's UCLA thesis film and not widely released theatrically until 2007. Both datings are preserved; not blended. Honors (sourced, dated): MacArthur Fellowship, class of 1988 (MacArthur Foundation); National Film Registry designation, 1990, as one of twenty-five films (MacArthur Foundation); Academy Honorary Award, Governors Awards, Nov. 11, 2017 (Academy). Age: the AP reported Burnett as 81 in April 2025 (its story was corrected from 82 to 81), consistent with the 1944 birth year carried in this record's era; no exact birth date is asserted. MEDIA: photo HELD (HELD — Candidate: Associated Press portrait of Charles Burnett, New York, Apr. 19, 2025 (Matt Licari / Invision / AP, via SHOOTonline). No license claimed, cleared, or verified; slot HELD under CTL-PHOTO-001. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6197-charles-burnett.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (CTL Shorts Link Map (2026-10-15) checked by name and film titles: no Short whose subject is Charles Burnett or) | audio = HELD (HELD — No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging.)

Referenced by

• Killer of Sheep — authored by → this record

Sources

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars.org), Governors Awards announcement, Sept. 2017 (accessed 2026-10-16) — Honorary Award to writer-director Charles Burnett, presented Nov. 11, 2017 at the 9th Governors Awards; born in Mississippi, raised in Watts; wrote, directed, produced, photographed and edited his first feature Killer of Sheep in 1977; other features My Brother's Wedding, To Sleep with Anger, The Glass Shield, Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation; documentaries incl. Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property — https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-honor-charles-burnett-owen-roizman-donald-sutherland-and-agnes-varda-oscars-2017 (primary source · build store)
• MacArthur Foundation, Charles Burnett, Class of 1988 (accessed 2026-10-16) — MacArthur Fellowship, class of 1988; independent filmmaker noted for depiction of African American family life; Killer of Sheep (1977) designated by the Library of Congress as one of twenty-five significant motion pictures in the National Film Registry (1990); To Sleep with Anger (1990) described; A.A. Los Angeles City College (1966), B.A. (1970) and M.F.A. (1973), UCLA — https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-1988/charles-burnett (build store)
• Associated Press (via SHOOTonline), 'Filmmaker Charles Burnett Discusses… Killer of Sheep,' Apr. 2025 (accessed 2026-10-16) — Burnett, 81, photographed and interviewed in New York on Apr. 19, 2025; shot Killer of Sheep on 16mm in the early 1970s for less than $10,000 as his UCLA thesis film, completed 1978; widespread theatrical release only in 2007; new 4K restoration in theaters in 2025; honorary Oscar in 2017; Mississippi-born, Watts-raised; seven features incl. To Sleep with Anger (1990) — https://www.shootonline.com/article/filmmaker-charles-burnett-discusses-the-never-ending-battle-and-legacy-surrounding-killer-of-sheep/ (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6197 · Combined Graph record U-07394 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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