Natalie Jasmine Harris
Natalie Jasmine Harris is a Black queer filmmaker from Silver Spring, Maryland currently based in NYC. She received her BFA in Film and Television from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. As a filmmaker, her work spans narrative, documentary, and experimental forms but is centered around a mission to tell stories that capture coming-of-age experiences, showcase Black joy, and reimagine liberation for marginalized communities.
Natalie's NYU thesis film, "Pure," received The 2020 Directors Guild of America's Student Film Award and screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide including BFI Flare, ABFF, NewFest, Outfest, and The Hamptons International Film Festival. In February 2022, the short film was acquired for distribution by HBO and is now available to stream on Max.
Natalie is working with award-winning producer, Avril Speaks, to adapt the concept behind "Pure" into a feature-length film of the same name that has garnered support from SFFILM's Rainin Screenwriting Grant, The Gotham Week Project Market, Outfest's Screenwriting Lab, The Toronto LGBTQ+ Financing Forum, Film Independent Fast Track, and The WIF x Sundance Financing Intensive.
In December 2022, Natalie was included in The Alice Initiative’s 2022 List of Emerging Female Directors. The Alice Initiative, backed by a group of anonymous female film executives, releases an annual survey of up-and-coming female directing talent, ready for their first studio feature.
Natalie is a 2023 Film at Lincoln Center Artists Academy Fellow and an inaugural cohort member of the GLAAD Black Queer Creative Summit. Currently, she is working on a short documentary through Outfest x Traverse32's Creative Hope Documentary Intensive and a short narrative film, Grace, from her 2022 Creative Culture Filmmaking Fellowship at The Jacob Burns Film Center. Both projects are also being supported by The Future of Film Is Female.
Natalie's work has been featured in publications that include Teen Vogue, THEM Magazine, Huffington Post, The Cut, and NBC. Natalie is also an emerging commercial director, having directed spots for Hyundai and Verizon.
Photography by Desmond Picotte
