Christine Turner is a filmmaker whose portraits of artists, activists and everyday people capture the beauty and struggle of life. She recently completed two new works: Unamplified, a verité film about the acclaimed opera singer J’Nai Bridges (PBS’ American Masters); and the Oscar-nominated The Barber of Little Rock (co-directed with John Hoffman), about a local barber's fight for a just economy (The New Yorker).
Christine’s current project is on the pioneering jazz musician Sun Ra (now in production). Her feature directorial debut, Homegoings, a portrait of a Harlem funeral director, premiered at Documentary Fortnight at MoMA and was broadcast on PBS’s POV prior to its release on Criterion Channel. Other directing credits include: Lynching Postcards: ‘Token of a Great Day’ (Paramount+), which was nominated for a Peabody and won an NAACP Image Award; the Sundance selection Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business (New York Times Op-Docs); and Paint & Pitchfork (The New Yorker) about celebrated artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley.
As an episodic director and producer for television, Christine has also collaborated on acclaimed non-fiction series such as The 1619 Project (Hulu), Amend: The Fight for America (Netflix) and Art in the Twenty-First Century (PBS), among others. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America and in 2024 was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.