The Color Line Diaries

In this five-part short series, filmmaker Asha Stuart embarks on a deeply personal journey across the U.S. to explore social and cultural issues consequential to Black Americans.

Black America with Asha Stuart
Funding Initiative
Short-Form Open Call
Headshot of Asha Stuart
Producer/Director

Asha Stuart

Asha Stuart is a documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on sociocultural themes. Her storytelling interests are rooted in the lives of people living in marginalized communities and facing injustice in areas of racial and economic inequality, public health, social exclusion, women’s rights and environmental issues. Her passion for storytelling… Show more has taken her across the world — the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh to women’s rights in Southern Africa. Asha’s works have appeared on National Geographic, CNN, TIME, PBS, MLB, Circa and many other platforms. Show less

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The Film

In this five-part documentary short series, filmmaker Asha Stuart embarks on a deeply personal journey across the United States to explore social and cultural issues consequential to Black Americans, focusing on stories in Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and California. Consistently gathering storylines from thought-provoking questions, this series bears witness to systemic issues that influences the lives of millions of Black Americans, often chronicling profoundly under-reported themes from Black voices. 

Stuart begins by covering an issue that has hit very close to home, beginning with a frantic call from her mother to say that her cousin has gone missing. The road to getting media coverage and a missing person police report wasn’t easy; nine months later, he still hasn’t been found. Stuart uses this episode to show what Black families go through to find loved ones who may never return and how difficult the process can be. The ensuing episodes create moments for increasingly necessary conversations through themes of public policy, culture, economics, public health, and racial inequality. The Color Lines Diaries weaves together social issue narratives, crafting a compelling portrait of a visceral Black American experience.

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