Warrington Hudlin is the Founder & Chief of dvRepublic.org and the President of the Black Filmmaker Foundation (BFF). Warrington Hudlin has built a distinguished career as a pioneering black filmmaker, organizer, and curator. Savoy Magazine listed Warrington Hudlin as one of the top 100 most influential blacks in America. Warrington Hudlin is the host/producer of the recent Starz/Encore cable television special, UNSTOPPABLE, which featured a dialogue between Hudlin and the legendary pioneers of African America cinema, Melvin Van Pebbles, Gordon Parks, and the late Ossie Davis. Warrington Hudlin is best known as the producer of popular feature films HOUSE PARTY, BOOMERANG, and BEBE KIDS and the award winning HBO special, COSMIC SLOP. HOUSE PARTY, produced for $2.5 million dollars, grossed $27 million dollars at the U.S. box office. HOUSE PARTY established a franchise for New Line Cinema while introducing the hip-hop film sub-genre to American cinema. BOOMERANG, starring Eddie Murphy, grossed $130 million dollars worldwide and is one of the highest grossing romantic comedies of all time. COSMIC SLOP, which generated significant controversy following its broadcast on HBO, has become a underground cult film classic. As the Executive Producer of the BFF DV Lab (the Black Filmmaker Foundation's incubator of multi-cultural, socially concerned, entertainment driven digital films), Hudlin commissioned films by a new generation of filmmakers of color. The BFF DV Lab most recent production, a online interactive narrative entitled, WEAPONS OF MISDIRECTION, is nominated for a Webby Award. Other productions include Once Upon a Ride, Haters, the Anti-Vigilante, the Breach, Big Head People, and the Pass the Torch Lectures. As the President and one of the founders of the Black Filmmaker Foundation (BFF), Warrington Hudlin has played an important role in the emergence of the contemporary black independent film movement. He convenes the Annual BFF Summit (1997-present), an invitation only industry retreat that brings together the most influential people of color in film and television for a business caucus with industry leaders. Since the founding of the Black Filmmaker Foundation over twenty-five years ago, Hudlin has curated and programmed black film festivals and series in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and throughout the United States. Hudlin co-founded and curated the Acapulco Black Film Festival which was held in Mexico from 1997 to 2001. Considered an authority on African American cinema, Warrington Hudlin is frequently quoted in the national press. Hudlin is a guest curator and member of the board of trustees of the Museum of Moving Image. He is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and serves on the advisory board of the Tribeca Film Institute, Asian Cinevision, the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), Imagenation Film Festival, Indiana University's Black Film Center/Archive, the Capoeira Foundation, Danzisa Dance Company, and the national advisory board of the Intel Computer Clubhouse. Warrington Hudlin is a native of East St. Louis, Illinois, and a graduate of Yale University. A martial arts practitioner since 1968, Hudlin received his black belt from Ju Jitsu Master Lil John Davis and is a closed door disciple of Chinese martial arts master and herbalist, Grandmaster Doo Wai. Warrington Hudlin credits his ancestors for the foundation on which his accomplishments are built. His father, Warrington Hudlin Sr., built a successful insurance brokerage and became one of the first African Americans to represent a major insurance company. His grandfather, Edward Hudlin, was a jockey who, following his return from France after World War I, became a stone mason and contractor known for building "rubblestone" houses. His great-grandfather, Richard Hudlin, was a journalist, actor, and the third African American in history to establish a motion picture company. His great-great-grandfather, Peter Hudlin, escaped from a slave plantation in Virginia, married an indigenous woman from the Cherokee Nation, and became a leader in the US anti-slavery movement know as the Underground Railroad. |
| Print this page | Close window |