As a writer, Mildred Lewis wonders how people can look at the same things and come away with different impressions. Take the Rodney King tapes. Some people see King as a big, threatening guy. Others see him as the victim, brutalized. Why do we see what we see, she asks?

Lewis first fell in love with theater, but found that film best captured the energy and passion of a culture. So she made her way to UCLA, where she earned an M.F.A. in film/television and an M.A. in African Area Studies with a film/television concentration. Selected as one of 15 black screenwriters to participate in a training program sponsored by Bill Cosby, she later sold several television projects and was honored as one of HBO’s outstanding new writers in 1998.

Lewis wants to make films that speak to others and challenge their assumptions about the world. Realizing the barriers that face a black woman writer/director, she hopes to make continue to make films that will open doors “for people who look like me or have an aesthetic like mine to contribute on a higher level.”