Tracy Heather Strain

Tracy Heather Strain, a two-time Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated filmmaker, explores stories about the ways diverse peoples have experienced life in the United States. In 2019 she won an NAACP Image Award for Motion Picture Directing for LORRAINE HANSBERRY: SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and aired on American Masters.

Her directing debut, BRIGHT LIKE A SUN and THE DREAM KEEPERS, in Blackside’s series I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African American Arts, “leaps off the screen” noted The New York Times, and The Hollywood Reporter praised her first film for American Experience, BUILDING THE ALASKA HIGHWAY as “dynamic” and “truly great storytelling.” Other credits include RACE: THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION and UNNATURAL CAUSES: IS INEQUALITY MAKING US SICK?.

Her filmmaking has been supported by fellowships from Brother Thomas/Boston Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, LEF Foundation, CPB/PBS Producers Academy, and grants from the NEH, NEA, CPB, Black Public Media, Ford Foundation, ITVS, and Color of Film Collaborative.

Tracy is also the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan University, an associate professor, co-director of the Wesleyan Documentary Project and the associate director of the College of Film and the Moving Image.