Gina Prince-Bythewood
| Gina Prince-Bythewood | |
|---|---|
Gina Prince-Bythewood
|
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| Born |
Gina Maria Prince June 10, 1969 United States |
| Education | UCLA |
| Occupation | Director Screenwriter |
| Known for |
Love & Basketball The Secret Life of Bees Beyond the Lights |
| Home town | Pacific Grove, California |
| Spouse(s) | Reggie Rock Bythewood |
| Children | 2 |
Gina Prince-Bythewood (born Gina Maria Prince; June 10, 1969) is an American film director and screenwriter. She is known for directing and producing the films Disappearing Acts (2000) and Love & Basketball (2000), The Secret Life of Bees (2008), and Beyond the Lights (2014).
Prince-Bythewood was adopted by Bob Prince, a computer programmer, and Maria Prince, a nurse, when she was 3 weeks old. Her adoptive father is white and her adoptive mother is of El Salvadorian and German descent. She grew up in the white middle-class neighborhood of Pacific Grove, California. Her adoptive parents had four children before adopting her, so she has four siblings.
She said she sought out her birth mother recently, but it was not a positive experience. Her birth mother, who is caucasian, was a teenager when she gave her up for adoption, and because her family knew her child would be black, they wanted the young girl to have an abortion.
In 1987, Prince-Bythewood graduated from Pacific Grove High School. She attended UCLA's film school, where she also ran competitive track. At UCLA, she received the Gene Reynolds Scholarship for Directing and the Ray Stark Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Undergraduates. She graduated in 1991.
After five years working in TV as a writer on shows like A Different World and South Central, Prince-Bythewood wrote her first film, 2000's Love & Basketball. The film was developed at the Sundance Institute's directing and writing lab.
She directed the feature film The Secret Life of Bees, which was adapted from the best-selling book by Sue Monk Kidd. It was released by Fox Searchlight in October 2008, and debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and Urbanworld Film Festival that same year.
In 2014, Prince-Bythewood directed Beyond the Lights, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Prince-Bythewood began work on the film in 2007, before work on 2008's The Secret Life of Bees was completed, but struggled to find financing after her original production company, Sony, backed out after she insisted on casting Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The film premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.
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