Emmy-Award Winning Filmmaker, Speaker, Coach, Educator
Photo by Jasmine Rossabout
Luchina Fisher is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, writer, speaker and educator on a mission to tell stories that move the world. She teaches documentary filmmaking at Yale University and won a 2024 Daytime Emmy for The Dads (Netflix).
An Army kid who grew up between Texas, Germany and North Carolina, Luchina learned early to navigate different worlds — and find the stories that connect us. She studied journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill and film in England as a Rotary Scholar. After losing her mother to breast cancer and her brother to AIDS, storytelling became a tool for advocacy and healing.
Luchina began her career as a journalist, writing for the Miami Herald and People – where she won a Peter Lisagor Award – and went on to contribute to The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine and ABC News before moving full time into film. Today, her work explores race, gender and identity and has appeared on Netflix, Hulu, PBS, History, ESPN, BET and screened in theaters, classrooms, festivals and companies around the world. Her honors include a GLAAD Special Recognition Award, Roger Ebert’s Golden Thumb Award and numerous festival prizes.
A proud mom of three, Luchina is a sought-after speaker and educator, committed to guiding the next generation of storytellers.
filmmaker
As the mother of a transgender child and sister to gay and queer siblings, Luchina brings a deep personal commitment to building a more just, loving and inclusive world through film.
Her work includes the Emmy-Award winning short documentary The Dads (Netflix), executive produced by Dwyane Wade; Mama Gloria (PBS), her feature directorial debut, nominated for a 2022 GLAAD Media Award; Team Dream (BET), winner of multiple film festival awards, executive produced by Queen Latifah; and Locked Out, the Best Documentary Feature at the American Black Film Festival. Her latest project, celebrating Black queer contributions to music, won the 2023 PitchBLACK Film Forum.
Luchina approaches filmmaking with a journalist’s integrity and a storyteller’s heart and is committed to building diverse creative teams and centering underrepresented voices. Her work spans broadcast and streamers, independent shorts and features, brand and non-profit videos and impact campaigns with organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign. Luchina has received support from Firelight Media, Chicken & Egg, Tribeca Studios, The Gotham, Sisters in Cinema, Black Public Media and more.
speaker
Luchina is a sought-after speaker who brings her personal journey – from journalist to mother of three to Emmy Award-winning filmmaker – into every room she enters. She speaks with heart and clarity about the power of authentic storytelling, the drive to create purposefully and the tools to keep dreams alive at any stage of life.
After years of telling other people’s stories, Luchina now shares her own – offering practical strategies for finding your voice, overcoming obstacles and staying creatively inspired. Whether in person or virtually, she blends moving personal narrative with clips from her award-winning films to spark connection and action.
Luchina’s talks are honest, empowering and deeply human. She creates space for self-reflection while challenging audiences to think bigger – about their work, their purpose and the stories we choose to tell.
Her clients include Nike, Capital One, VMware, Duke Energy, BMO Wealth Management, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, as well as law firms, universities, nonprofits, and filmmaker and community groups.
coach
As an educator and consultant, Luchina is deeply committed to expanding both the kinds of stories we see on screen and the people who get to tell them.
At Yale University’s School of Art, Luchina teaches Introduction to Documentary Filmmaking, where she guides students – many new to film – through the full creative process, from concept development to finished documentary. Her teaching emphasizes not just technique, but voice: helping students understand their personal connection to a story and why it matters.
As a consultant, Luchina has worked on a wide range of film projects, offering input on story structure, creative direction, rough cuts, and festival, distribution and impact strategy.
Luchina has also mentored and advised countless filmmakers, both individually and through organizations such as Firelight Media’s Doc Lab, Brown Girls Doc Mafia’s Fellowship, the Saul Zaentz Storylab, Sisters in Cinema’s Documentary Fellowship and Black Public Media’s PitchBlack.
