Introduction

Michele's feature length animated documentary 'The Prince of Hip Hop', is due for theatrical release in the Spring of 2008. Produced by South Park's Matt Stone, 'The Prince of Hip Hop' has already won her a Best Musical Film Screenplay award. Michele is also Executive Producer of 'South Coast' (2007). This crossover character documentary, charts how hip hop has discovered a quintessentially English voice, in the most unlikely of locations, the south coast seaside towns. Michele's current projects also include, 'Hip-hop prophets' and 'Gardening Leave' which is to be screened at the Brighton Film Festival in December 2007. 'Gardening Leave' is a 45 minute documentary, following the final months of the Gardner Arts Centre, built by Basil Spence in 1969, on the University of Sussex campus. Michele is working with animation company Littleloud, where she is writing an adaptation of Gulliver's Travels for Channel 4's Animated Classics series. Her upcoming projects include her first foray into fiction, as writer and director of 'Britz in the Hood' which she is currently developing in collaboration with Britz Ltd and The Spice Factory. She has also recently curated the film programme of the Brighton Hip-Hop Festival.

Provenance

Michele d'Acosta was born in Headley, Hampshire (UK) and currently lives amongst the disparate communities of clubbers, art-lovers, blue rinse retirees, and daytrippers in the seaside town of Brighton, England. A graduate of the UCLA Screenwriting programme, prior to filmmaking she worked as a journalist for Amnesty International. Michele became a Producer for British TV company Channel 4 and later a Producer/Director on BBC2's television youth programming strand DEF II. Michele moved to New York in the early 90s with a one-way ticket and $200 to her name...

Professional Experience

In the US, she worked as a Producer/Director, in HBO's Oscar award-winning documentary film department. Michele's position at HBO led to working with British documentary maker Nick Broomfield. Michele Produced feature documentaries (1994-2001) with Nick, including 'Fetishes' (1996) for HBO, Kurt & Courtney (1998) for the BBC and the Grierson Award winning 'Biggie and Tupac' (2002), for Channel 4. Michele has also worked with South Park producer Matt Stone and his award-winning animation team to produce the feature-length animated documentary, 'The Prince of Hip Hop' (due for theatrical release in Spring 2008) for which she won the Columbine Award for Best Musical Film Screenplay at the Moondance Film Festival in 2004.'The Prince of Hip-Hop' blurs the boundaries between live action and animation featuring an ex crack dealer turned Jehovah's Witnesses Minister called Stanley Harris who claims he's the creator of hip-hop.

Career Apex

Grierson Award for Producer: Biggie & Tupac (2002) Moondance Film Festival - Columbine Award: Best Musical Film Screenplay: The Prince of Hip-Hop (May 2004) Meeting Suge Knight (the CEO of Death Row Records) in a California men's maximum security prison.

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Music Therapy and Creative Partnerships.

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Artists and practitioners who work across all artforms.