Gina Prince-Bythewood

Love & Basketball was based somewhat around Prince-Blythewodd’s personal life and her experiences growing up. This film is one of the most successful films directed by a black woman, which created a union between the subject matter and the medias recognition of woman playing basketball and soccer.

In 2017 Prince-Bythewood, along with her husband Reggie Rock Bythewood, created the show Shots Fired for Fox. Later that year, Prince-Bythewood was announced as the director for Silver & Black, a movie based on Marvel Comics characters Silver Sable and Black Cat.

Her most recent work was writing for the movie adaptation of the novel Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. The film had an estimated $12,498,674 worldwide box office take by March 2017 after its release date (January 21, 2017). She directed the upcoming adaptation of Greg Rucka's The Old Guard for Netflix, starring Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne.

In 2016 Prince-Bythewood announced her next project would be an adaptation of Roxane Gay's novel An Untamed State. The project would be co-written by herself and Gay and would star Gugu Mbatha-Raw

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 when the original production company, Sony, backed out after she insisted on casting Mbatha-Raw. The film premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

She directed the feature film The Secret Life of Bees, 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.

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. The film won 12 awards overall and was nominated for three more. It won Best Film and Best Film Poster at the Black Reel Awards, and Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film also grossed about $27.7 million worldwide, making it the ninth most popular basketball film in the United States at that time.

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.

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).