This story originally appeared in La Fronde’s July 16 newsletter.
A stat I saw from UCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report really hit home how much DEI has regressed in the industry: representation for women film directors hit an 8-year low. And, just as depressing of a stat, BIPOC film directors are still underrepresented. That lack of representation is why Chicago-based photojournalist Danielle A. Scruggs has been on a mission to preserve the legacies of Black women and nonbinary directors by creating a massive repository that’s unique to anything else on the internet.
For the last 11 years, Danielle has built a comprehensive, award-winning archive of more than 200 directors across 500 films. I talked with Danielle about her very important work maintaining this incredible, award-winning archive, why there’s still a lack of Black representation in Hollywood, and her media diet for this week’s Maxed Out.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I read in your interview with Marie Claire that Ava DuVernay’s debut movie, ‘I Will Follow’ (which I also loved), was the inspiration behind starting the Black Women Directors archive. What about that film inspired you to launch this project?
I was living in D.C. at the time, and I saw this really beautiful movie poster that stopped me. Salli Richardson-Whitfield was on the poster, who is herself an amazing director, and then I saw on the credits that the movie was directed by Ava DuVernay, and I was like, oh, I'm not familiar with her. At that time, I wasn't really seeing a lot of movies that centered Black women like that, so I was like, okay, I got to go see this in theaters. And I just thought it was this really lovely, quiet film about dealing with grief, dealing with relationships, and again it was just something I hadn't really seen a lot of at that particular point in pop culture. Growing up in the '90s you see Black media all the time, you see Black families being centered all the time. But at that point, I just wasn't really seeing a lot of work that centered Black women in that specific way.
So I was like, okay, I got to find out more about Ava DuVernay. I started following her online, and then when I went to read more about other Black women filmmakers, I just realized a lot of people were talking about the same two or three people. My journalist brain was like, that's not right, there's got to be more out here who are not being talked about. So I really just started doing the research, for my own personal education too, because I'm not trained in filmmaking, I've trained as a journalist, but I've always loved film. I started a Tumblr just to basically house everything there — it was also inspired by Kimberly Drew's Black Contemporary Art project. And when I started it, it really just kind of snowballed almost immediately. People were reposting it, emailing me and saying, "Make sure you talk to this person, make sure you add this person, check out this film." And then other people started writing about it. So that made me realize — okay, I'm not the only one who wants this information, who wants to find out more about Black women behind the camera.
What goes into maintaining and building out this archive?
Initially it kind of started out as my own knowledge and research, and then eventually I built its own website, on its own platform — because even at that time, Tumblr, all these social media platforms, they're so dynamic, they're constantly changing, and I needed one place that could be constant, versus relying on algorithms. So part of it was my own knowledge, my own research — looking at IMDb, looking at other film archives, film repositories, art house theaters, and seeing who's playing, who they're listing, and finding out more about these people. And then also part of it is people self-selecting — I started a submission pipeline, so people could opt in and add themselves, add their work to it. So it's been a combination of those things, and people still send me recommendations too.
How many total directors do you have in the archive now?
Right now it's close to 200. Last time I counted it was like 180, but I added a few more directors earlier this year, so it's closer to 200 at this point — and it's about 500 films too.
You've done this for a little over 10 years now. What have you seen, anecdotally, as far as trends with diversity and inclusion in the film world?
In 2020, a lot of people purported to have an interest in Black stories and Black media makers, people were saying, "we're listening, we're learning, we have to do better." There was a spike in visitors to the Black Women Directors site, a spike in interest in stories by Black people in aggregate. And then just a couple years later, no one was listening and learning anymore, and things kind of went back to the status quo. I also read the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report, and they were saying that as of last year, just 5% of all the films released that past year were made by women of color. They don't have statistics on Black women specifically, but even the fact that it's only 5%, when we definitely make up more than 5% of the U.S. population — and definitely when you're speaking globally, way more than that.
It wasn't surprising to see that shift, but it's definitely been noticeable to see the swing. It just feels very stark. Even though it wasn't surprising, it was very stark, going from "we want to support Black creators" — to now this big shift away from it. But I kind of knew that was going to be temporary, as pessimistic as that sounds. I figured, let me just keep my head down, keep doing the work, and people who have a genuine interest in that, they're still going to be there. Let me focus on them versus people who might be here because they see it as a trend, versus seeing it as part of the ecosystem already.
La Fronde is a new outlet from Teen Vogue alums covering the inside stories of women shaping media — the power, stakes, and players defining the industry. Free newsletter every Thursday.
Do you think Hollywood will ever go back to an era like the mid-'90s "renaissance" for Black TV shows and movies? What do you think it takes to create that kind of change?
I really do feel lucky that I grew up at a time where I did see myself on screen a lot, on a pretty consistent basis. I don't know if things are ever going to get back to that moment, especially because media is so fractured right now anyway — there's no monoculture anymore. Everyone's kind of building their own little fandoms of media, based on what their algorithm's feeding them. Every now and then something comes along in the zeitgeist where everyone's paying attention to the same thing at the same time — like ‘Sinners’ last year, or ‘Euphoria,’ or ‘Obsession.’ But I don't see that happening around Black film or Black TV series very often, even when it's really, really good. I saw ‘Sinners’ — one of the best movies that came out that year, at an advance screening in the spring — but when I was talking to other people who wanted to see it, they said it was out of theaters in like a week, or already on digital. I feel like Black films often aren't given the chance to get the traction to have that moment in the zeitgeist, where we're all going to be talking about the same thing. It does happen, but Black films don't always get the marketing power or the PR campaigns behind them to have that moment.
Even with ‘Sinners,’ the initial media narrative was that it didn't open to big numbers, it was almost framed like they had such low expectations for it. And then once it kept growing and growing, then it was "oh yeah, Ryan Coogler, he's a genius." It's constantly been proven that Black movies sell, that people are interested in Black films and Black stories — but a lot of the gatekeepers still don't want to give that same marketing boost or PR boost behind these stories. Even when it's proven something can be critically successful, financially successful, there's still this resistance to it. It's frustrating, because you see other people, other studios, have no problem taking a gamble on them, and when that gamble pays off, it's never seen as a one-off, it's seen as "we got to do more of this." But for whatever reason, when it comes to Black directors, Black storytellers, they don't want to make that same gamble. I don't know what it's going to take for that to change. Part of me thinks more Black people need to be in charge of these studios, but I don't know if that's even the answer — I don't know if trying to put ourselves in these structures that haven't worked for us for so long is the answer.
It seems like there's never really follow-through from Hollywood execs after a ‘Black Panther’ or a ‘Sinners’ or an ‘Insecure’ comes along. The attitude seems to be more, "we need to see more proof" when the proof is already there.
Right, exactly — that's something I've been noticing across the board. There are these very outsized expectations of Black films, where they have to do 20 different things at once — break box office records, be critically acclaimed across the board, have a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, be a people-pleaser that everyone loves. It has to break records. Versus their peers, who can just release a movie and you'll see 20 other movies that look just like it — they didn't have to prove they'd break box office records, they didn't have to have perfect scores from every critic in the country.
I know you're doing work outside the archive too — events, your Substack, raising awareness of these directors. How have you been able to mobilize the community you've built?
That's actually been really great to be able to do more in-real-life events. The first thing I did was putting together the Chicago Film Symposium, in collaboration with Black Film Club, an organization based here in Chicago that hosts screenings and events. I thought, they're experts at this, let me reach out to them and see what we can do together — and that grew into this really beautiful community-centered event. We started it in 2024, did it last year, and we're taking a pause this year to get fundraising together, get our infrastructure a little stronger, and we're going to come back in 2027.
I've also been doing Black Women Directors-specific events. Earlier this year I partnered with the Chicago Public Library and did a screening of a documentary on Angela Davis by Black woman director Shola Lynch. That was really great, seeing people come through from the community — it was an intergenerational crowd, people my age, younger, and older, coming together around media and art made by Black women, with a lot of curiosity about it, really great questions. The same thing happens at my horror screening event, File Under Horror, which highlights films in the horror genre made by Black women and nonbinary directors. People have really great questions. I've really loved putting those events together.
Alright, and now we arrive at the Maxed Out part of the interview. To start, how much time are you spending on your phone per day?
Right now it's at five and a half hours.
Ok! That actually might be the lowest screen time we’ve had so far. Tell me about your media diet.
I'd say it's kind of equal parts junk food and healthy food.
It’s all a part of a balanced diet, after all.
Exactly. I do spend a lot of time reading — New York Times, I get their newsletters, NPR, Washington Post. I also listen to a lot of audio journalism — I really love podcasts: The Daily, The Headlines, Up First, Offline with Jon Favreau, Apple News In Conversation, and Pop Culture Happy Hour — that's been one of my favorites.
I have a bajillion Substack subscriptions, but the ones I read the most are The Utter by Yrsa Daley-Ward. I really love the way she's so honest about the creative process, how the ups and downs of living affect how you make work or make art. Also Hung Up by Hunter Harris. That's one of my favorite Substacks, because she writes in a way that makes you feel like you're reading texts from your super smart, super informed friend who's also obsessed with pop culture. All of that is the healthy food part of my media diet.
The junk food part is spending probably too much time on TikTok — there's something about the way people comment on TikTok specifically, it's so unhinged in a way I've never really seen on other social media platforms. Even at the height of Twitter, TikTok is way more unhinged. You'll see people doing skits, telling stories, and you're just like, "is this your real life?" You never know what you're getting in the next video — you could get some crazy confessional, then a skit, then a deep dive into some topic you've never heard of before, and you're like, "I should follow this person."
What’s next for you and the Black Women Directors project?
I do have another event coming up next month — a screening of a documentary about Toni Cade Bambara called The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing. She's a really amazing writer, also a filmmaker and documentarian, so I'm really excited to host a screening and talk about her work. As far as Black Women Directors goes, I just really want to encourage people to spend time with it — it's there as a free resource, no ads, no algorithm. You can go at your own pace and learn more about all these different Black women directors — there's biographical information, links to trailers, and links to where you can stream or buy people's films. I really hope people spend some extended time with it and get a glimpse of what the internet used to be like, before ads and algorithms showing you things you don't follow.