Kasi Lemmons

CTL-E-6296 · Person · other · 1979–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07482 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6296.

Kasi Lemmons is an American film director, screenwriter, actress, librettist and educator. Born Karen Diane Lemmons in St. Louis, Missouri, to biology teacher Milton Lemmons and Dorothy Lemmons, a counsellor who later became a psychologist, she was raised largely in Newton, Massachusetts, after her parents' divorce, performed with the Boston Children's Theatre, and studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, at the University of California, Los Angeles — where she majored in history — and in the film programme at the New School for Social Research. She acted first, debuting in the 1979 television movie 11th Victim, playing Ardelia Mapp in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and appearing in School Daze and Candyman. She then wrote Eve's Bayou and directed it herself: released in 1997, the Louisiana family drama won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, earned a National Board of Review debut honour, was the highest-grossing independent film of 1997, and entered the National Film Registry in 2018. Five further features followed — The Caveman's Valentine (2001), Talk to Me (2007), Black Nativity (2013), Harriet (2019) and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) — alongside television work including Self Made (2020). Her libretto for Terence Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2021–22 season — the first Met opera by an African American composer and librettist — and won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Lemmons is an Arts Professor in the Graduate Film Department at NYU Tisch, and in 2025 she received the Los Angeles Press Club's Distinguished Storyteller Award.

The record

• Also known as: Karen Diane Lemmons, Karen Lemmons

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (The Tiebreaker — 747 Program, Wave 13 completion record; the program's 90th staged record, restoring the exact 4,000-entity landing after the Wave 13 Julie Dash duplication). WHY THIS RECORD EXISTS: two parallel Wave 13 lines independently staged Julie Dash — Scan Tail Wave 7 as CTL-E-6266 and The Closer as CTL-E-6287. The Closer's deeper-sourced Dash record (8 sources) is retained; the W7 Dash record is struck at merge, and its two staged edges (Eve's Bayou predecessor wiring CTL-E-6173 authored_by and CTL-E-4176 has_alumnus) are carried on the retained record. Striking one record left the program at 89 of the 90 records needed to land on exactly 4,000 entities; this record is the 90th. The subject was chosen on merit, not convenience: Scan Tail Wave 7 flagged Kasi Lemmons as a named-pass candidate with no graph record, and her record closes the authored_by edge that W7 had to document as blocked on its Eve's Bayou record (CTL-E-6260). Gate A (2026-10-16): CLEAR — full-text sweep of the live graph (3,910 entities) for 'Lemmons' and 'Kasi' returns zero hits; no Kasi Lemmons entity, birth-name variant (Karen Lemmons / Karen Diane Lemmons), or alias is homed. Side findings recorded for the merge: no New York University, Vondie Curtis-Hall, or Samuel L. Jackson entity exists; none of her acting-film titles is a Work entity; UCLA (CTL-E-4176) is homed. ID CTL-E-6296 free at staging (live CTL-E-62xx run ends at CTL-E-6205; staged Wave 13 ranges run 6206–6295). Supply: Scan Tail Wave 7 named-pass candidate, harvested at parent direction to complete Wave 13. SCOPE GATE: a canonical Black woman filmmaker whose debut feature is a National Film Registry work already staged in this wave (Eve's Bayou, CTL-E-6260); staged to close that record's documented blocked edge, per the Tiebreaker brief. Vital status: LIVING — verified from a dated current source: NYU Tisch's 2025 news record names Lemmons the 2025 recipient of the Los Angeles Press Club's Distinguished Storyteller Award and states her NYU Graduate Film professorship in the present tense (accessed 2026-10-16). No tribute treatment; no flowers. STATISTICS (counted, sourced, dated 2026-10-16): Feature films directed: 6 — Eve's Bayou (1997), The Caveman's Valentine (2001), Talk to Me (2007), Black Nativity (2013), Harriet (2019), Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) (filmography agreed by The HistoryMakers and Wikipedia; the Sundance Institute and NYU Tisch both number I Wanna Dance with Somebody as her sixth film). Eve's Bayou: released 1997; inducted into the National Film Registry in 2018 as one of 25 films announced that year (Library of Congress complete listing; NYU Tisch). RECORDED CONFLICT — National Film Registry year: several institutional bios (Los Angeles Press Club copy carried by NYU Tisch in 2025; the Roxbury Film Festival program) give 2017; the Library of Congress's own listing gives 2018. The record follows the Library of Congress; the conflict is shown, not blended. Harriet (2019): 2 Academy Award nominations, incl. Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo; 2 Golden Globe nominations; 10 NAACP Award nominations (Sundance Institute; NYU Tisch). Eve's Bayou production budget: $4 million under TriMark Pictures (Contemporary Black Biography). The HistoryMakers oral history: recorded February 6, 2022, in Harlem; 9 uncompressed video files totalling 4:46:41 (finding aid A2022_012). Honorary doctorate: Doctor of Humane Letters, Salem State College, 1998 (The HistoryMakers; Wikipedia). RECORDED CONFLICT — BIRTH DATE (shown, never blended; no date is asserted in the description): The HistoryMakers (her own oral-history collection's finding aid) gives February 15, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri. Wikipedia gives February 24, 1959, attributed to Missouri birth registers and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 'Births Recorded' column of March 6, 1959. Contemporary Black Biography (Encyclopedia.com) gives the year only as 1961, a year also used by a 2001 interview profile. The day, and the year itself (1959 vs. 1961), remain UNRESOLVED on the opened evidence; the record states St. Louis — agreed by all three — and nothing more precise. MEDIA: map N/A (person); photo HELD with named candidate; chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6296-kasi-lemmons.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map; the map's two 'Harriet' rows — Short #55 on Harriet Tubman and Short #165, Rah Digga's 'Dirty Harriet' — are not matching-entity items for Lemmons or for her film Harriet); audio HELD (her principal matching audio record, the 2022 HistoryMakers oral history, is rights-restricted by The HistoryMakers — use requires preapproval per its finding aid). 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; maps attach to places and institutions.) | 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 (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked 2026-1) | audio = HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging. The principal matching audio-vis)

Referenced by

• Eve's Bayou — authored by → this record
• University of California, Los Angeles — has alumnus → this record

Sources

• The HistoryMakers, Finding Aid to the Video Oral History Interview with Kasi Lemmons (A2022_012) (accessed 2026-10-16) — born February 15, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Dorothy and Milton Lemmons (birth-date conflict leg A); attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the University of California, Los Angeles, and The New School for Social Research; performed at the Boston Children's Theater as a youth; starred in As the World Turns, The Cosby Show, School Daze, Vampire's Kiss, Silence of the Lambs, The Five Heartbeats, Candyman, Fear of a Black Hat, Hard Target, Drop Squad, ER and Disconnect; short film Dr. Hugo (mid-1990s); Eve's Bayou (1997) as her writing and directorial debut, winning Outstanding Directorial Debut (National Board of Review), Best Director (American Black Film Festival) and Best First Feature (Independent Spirit Awards); The Caveman's Valentine (2001) opened the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; she led a tribute to Sidney Poitier at the 74th Academy Awards; Talk to Me (2007) directing awards incl. the NAACP Image Award; Black Nativity (2013) adapted from Langston Hughes's musical; Harriet (2019) won her Best Director from the Black Film Critics Circle; in 2019 she adapted Charles Blow's Fire Shut Up in My Bones into an opera libretto for Terence Blanchard; Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody as her latest project at the finding aid's processing; associate arts professor at NYU Tisch; taught at AFI, Yale, Columbia Film School, MIT, UCLA, USC and others; honorary doctorate of humane letters, Salem State College, 1998; Vassar artist in residence 2008; husband Vondie Curtis Hall; oral history recorded February 6, 2022 in Harlem — 9 video files, 4:46:41 total — https://www.thehistorymakers.org/sites/default/files/A2022_012_EAD.pdf (primary source · build store)
• Sundance Institute (Sundance Collab), Kasi Lemmons (accessed 2026-10-16) — Eve's Bayou inducted into the National Film Registry; Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature; National Board of Review special first-time director award; the film marked Samuel L. Jackson's debut as a film producer and helped launch Meagan Good and Jurnee Smollett; The Caveman's Valentine opened the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; Talk to Me earned the 2008 NAACP Image Award for outstanding directing; Black Nativity (2013) adapted from Langston Hughes; Harriet earned two Oscar nominations, two Golden Globe nominations and ten NAACP Award nominations; executive producer of the Netflix limited series Self Made, of which she directed two episodes (the series earned 3 NAACP Image Awards); I Wanna Dance With Somebody as her sixth film, opened Christmas 2022, number one most-watched movie on Netflix on its debut weekend; as an actress she appeared in Silence of the Lambs, Hard Target, Fear of a Black Hat and School Daze; Arts Professor in the Graduate Film Department at NYU Tisch; taught at Yale, MIT, USC, UCLA, AFI and elsewhere; Film Independent board member since 2004; librettist of Fire Shut Up in My Bones (with composer Terrence Blanchard), which opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2021-22 season as the first opera by an African-American composer and librettist ever performed at the Met and won the Grammy for Best Opera Recording — https://collab.sundance.org/people/Kasi-Lemmons-1523989060 (build store)
• New York University Tisch School of the Arts, "Eve's Bayou" & "Brokeback Mountain" Inducted Into National Film Registry (2018) (accessed 2026-10-16) — the Library of Congress announced 25 films to be added to the National Film Registry that year, including Eve's Bayou, identified as Professor Kasi Lemmons' directorial debut; Lemmons quoted in her own statement as a Tisch professor — https://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film/news/2018/-eve-s-bayou--inducted-into-national-film-registry (build store)
• Library of Congress, Complete National Film Registry Listing (accessed 2026-10-16) — Eve's Bayou — year of release 1997, year inducted 2018 — https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/ (build store)
• New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Grad Film Professor Kasi Lemmons receives award from Los Angeles Press Club (2025) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Lemmons is the 2025 recipient of the Los Angeles Press Club's Distinguished Storyteller Award for Storytelling Outside of Journalism (dated vital-status evidence; present-tense institutional record); she is an Arts Professor in the Graduate Film Department at NYU Tisch (2025); six-feature sequence Eve's Bayou, The Caveman's Valentine, Talk to Me, Black Nativity, Harriet, Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody; Harriet nominated for two Oscars including Best Actress; Fire Shut Up In My Bones opened the Met's 2021-22 season as the first opera by an African-American composer and librettist performed there and won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording; I Wanna Dance With Somebody opened Christmas 2022 and was #1 on Netflix during its debut weekend. NOTE: this page's quoted press-club copy gives the National Film Registry year as 2017, which conflicts with the Library of Congress's own listing (2018); the LOC listing governs and the conflict is recorded in this record's statistics — https://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film/news/2025/grad-film-professor-kasi-lemmons-receives-award (build store)
• Wikipedia, Kasi Lemmons (accessed 2026-10-16) — born Karen Diane Lemmons on February 24, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri (birth-date conflict leg B; the article's birth entry is attributed to Missouri birth registers and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 'Births Recorded' column of March 6, 1959); daughter of Dorothy Othello (née Stallworth) and Milton Francis Lemmons — father a biology teacher, mother a counsellor who became a psychologist; parents divorced when she was eight; mother moved the family to Newton, Massachusetts; attended Commonwealth School in Boston and NYU's Circle in the Square summer program; attended NYU Tisch, UCLA and the New School film program; honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Salem State College, 1998; acting debut in the television movie 11th Victim (1979); played Ardelia Mapp in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Bernadette Walsh in Candyman (1992); began the Eve's Bayou screenplay in 1992 and shot the short Dr. Hugo from a section of it; Eve's Bayou was the highest-grossing independent film of 1997; conceived and helmed the Sidney Poitier tribute at the 74th Academy Awards (2002); directed the Netflix limited series Self Made (2020) and an episode of Women of the Movement (2022); married to actor and director Vondie Curtis-Hall since 1995; years active 1979-present — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasi_Lemmons (build store)
• Encyclopedia.com (Contemporary Black Biography), Lemmons, Kasi 1961– (accessed 2026-10-16) — birth year given as 1961 (birth-date conflict leg C); born in St. Louis, Missouri, daughter of a poet/psychotherapist mother and a biology teacher father; moved with her mother and two sisters to Newton, Massachusetts at eight; performed with the Boston Children's Theatre; enrolled at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, transferred to UCLA where she majored in history and left without graduating, then enrolled in the film program at the New School for Social Research; first writing credit came from a Cosby Show audition in the 1980s; Samuel L. Jackson came aboard Eve's Bayou as lead and co-producer; TriMark Pictures underwrote Eve's Bayou with a $4 million budget; her husband Vondie Curtis-Hall encouraged her to circulate the script; acting credits incl. School Daze (1988), The Five Heartbeats (1991), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as Jodie Foster's FBI Academy roommate, Candyman (1992), Fear of a Black Hat (1993), Hard Target (1993), Drop Squad (1994) and Gridlock'd (1997); National Board of Review Director's Debut Award, 1998 — https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/lemmons-kasi-1961 (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6296 · Combined Graph record U-07482 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 7 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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