Carmen Elly Wilkerson

Carmen Elly Wilkerson is an Award Winning Writer and Director born in Detroit, and raised in a Chicago suburb. She's the niece of Ernest Elly, the New Orleans jazz drummer best known as Ray Charles' drummer. Although Carmen studied Chemistry in college, she found her way into the entertainment world by working on Independent films. She attended The American Film Institute's Directing Program where she received her Masters in Fine Arts, and was awarded the Hollywood Foreign Press Award for Directing. Carmen directed A Guy Walks Into A Bar, starring Fred Savage and Robert Pine, that won many festivals, including a Director's Guild Award, and a Cine Eagle Award. After A Guy's' television debut on Showtime, Variety called it a 'Mini Cult Classic'. That same year Kodak named Carmen One of 16 Film Makers to Watch. As a writer Carmen trained in The Guy Hanks Marvin Miller Screenwriting Fellowship, and was twice a finalist in the Sundance Writing Lab. She spent a year in the CBS Director Training Program on NCIS and CSI-NY shadowing veteran TV directors, Dennis Smith and Oz Scott. In 2015 Carmen relaunched her career by Writing, Directing and Producing the short film, The Reunion, about four teenage girls the morning after a party where one of them gets sexually assaulted. Personal in nature, this film screened at over 25 film festivals and receiving multiple awards including winning The Charlotte Black Film Festival, and HollyShorts. It can be seen on AspireTV, BHERC TV, and Kanopy, a streaming service in Colleges and Universities around the world. In 2019 Carmen's short, The Peck Situation, was awarded a finishing fund grant from Films With a Purpose, and at The Show Low Film Festival won 4 awards, including Best Short, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Ensemble. Carmen is currently in Women in Film's Directing Mentor Program, and is in development on her feature script, THE GOWN MEN. Her hope is to direct BOTH film and television.