Misan Sagay
Misan Sagay | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Writer, producer |
| Years active | 1999–present |
Misan Sagay is an Anglo-Nigerian screenwriter and producer.
Biography
Sagay graduated from St Andrews University with a First Class Honours degree in biochemistry then trained as a doctor at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London.[citation needed]
After qualifying as a doctor, she specialised in Paediatric Hamematology and Critical Care and at the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Westminster Children's Hospital. [citation needed]
Career
A former emergency room doctor, Sagay made her writing debut with the 1999 film The Secret Laughter of Women which she also produced.[1] She wrote the teleplay for the Oprah-produced television movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, based on the book by the same name. Sagay is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Sagay wrote the 2013 British drama Belle after visiting Scone Palace, where she saw a unique portraiture of two women, Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray.[2] This painting, and the women within, acted as the inspiration for her screenplay.[3] The film tells the Story of Belle, the daughter of an enslaved African and a British admiral. The film discusses the prominence of African decedents and women in British society in the late 1700s.[3]
Belle Movie Authorship Challenge History.
Director Amma Asante joined the 'Belle Movie' project in 2010 (Damian Jones) after Misan Sagay left due to ill health (Baz of The Guardian). In 2013 there was a standard automatic arbitration at the end of Principal photography as Asante was a Director claiming joint credit with Sagay. The extensive Writers Guild of America arbitration process found the script was overwhelmingly Sagay's work. Sagay was awarded sole credit and so deemed to be the sole author of the script. Asante appealed the decision and lost the appeal.
The credit became final in February 2013. (cite) In a press report in September 2013, Asante contested the WGA awarded credit claiming she wrote 75% of the screenplay. In 2014 after the films release in US and UK, in a press report Asante contested the WGA credit claiming she had written 100% of the screenplay having put Sagay’s script aside. She also claimed to have come on board in 2009. Sagay has maintained throughout that the script that bore only Asante's name was an edit polish and rearrangement of her script and has expressed outrage that it ever bore Asante's name alone.
As of July 2016, Sagay is working on a six-part TV series called Guerrilla of which she is a co-writer alongside award winning Writer and producer John Ridley know by many as the screenwriter of 12 years A Slave.[citation needed] The series which stars award winning actor Idris Elba OBE, known to many as the actor that plays the central character in the hit TV series Luther. Idris features in Guerrilla, a six-part limited series, which has been given the green light by Showtime and Sky Atlantic.[citation needed]
Away from screenwriting, Misan is creating a programme with the Tisch School of Fine Arts in Florence, which will help established connections between aspiring black screenwriters and established ones. The end goal is to help provide guidance to the next generation of talent.[citation needed]
Sagay is also a member of the Wolfe pack, a guild of 50 leading female Screenwriters working in Hollywood that aims to encourage more women to enter the film business.[4] Misan hopes also to be a catalyst for African descendants to take charge of their own narratives. Sagan said in an interview with The Guardian, "Black women need to be in control of their own stories and that means hiring more black talent across all aspects of film and television".[4]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 | The Secret Laughter of Women | Writer & Producer |
| 2005 | Their Eyes Were Watching God | Writer |
| 2013 | Belle | Writer |
| 2017 | Guerrilla | Co-writer |
Awards, honors and nominations
Misan Sagay was nominated for a 2005 Black Reel Awards for Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted – Television for Their Eyes Were Watching God
Sagay was nominated for a 2015 Black Reel Awards for Best Screenplay for Belle.[5]
Sagay received the 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture for Belle.[6]
References
- ^ "BFI | Sight & Sound | The Secret Laughter of Women (1998)". old.bfi.org.uk. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
- ^ Shaina411. "Her Source I Writer Misan Sagay Talks 'Belle'". The Source. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Rickey, Carrie (25 April 2014). "'Belle' and Slavery's End in Britain". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
- ^ a b Brewer, Kirstie (16 June 2016). "'If diversity means giving white men more work writing about black women, we've failed'". the Guardian. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
- ^ "And the Nominees Are . . ". 17 December 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
- ^ "Winners of the '46th NAACP Image Awards' | Press Room". www.naacp.org. Retrieved 30 June 2016.