Dustin Lance BLACK

A native Texan raised in a devout LDS home, Dustin Lance Black is now an Academy Award winning filmmaker, writer, LGBTQ+ activist, husband, and father of two.

He won the Academy Award and two WGA Awards for his screenplay for Milk, the film about activist Harvey Milk which starred Sean Penn.

In 2018, Black received the Valentine Davies Award from the Writers Guild of America for his body of work.

Black was a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), which successfully led the federal cases for marriage equality in California and Virginia, putting an end to California’s discriminatory Proposition 8.

In 2022, Black created, executive produced, wrote, and directed the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice nominated limited series “Under the Banner of Heaven” for FX and HULU based on the bestselling book by Jon Krakauer, starring Andrew Garfield.

Black’s best-selling, award-winning memoir “Mama’s Boy” was released in 2019. Produced by Amblin TV and Playtone, acclaimed filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau adapted Black’s book into a feature documentary for HBO.

Black also wrote the Academy Award nominated 2023 film Rustin, a biopic about the esteemed civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin, and Black is currently directing the feature documentary Rock Out with Live Nation and Bill Gerber producing. 

An honors graduate of UCLA’s School of Film and Television, Black began his career as an art director before moving into directing documentaries and commercials.

Black has taught screenwriting at UCLA, Emerson, Bowling Green, USC, and has lectured at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Penn.

He has appeared regularly on the BBC, MSNBC, and CNN as a political commentator and has been repeatedly named one of the 50 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in the United States.