By Samantha Ofole-Prince
Emmy Award–winning actress, director, and producer Angela Bassett will be honored by the American Black Film Festival.
Bassett’s career spans decades of iconic powerful performances that include her portrayal of Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” a film which earned her an Academy Award nomination. In 2023, she became the first person to receive an Academy Award nomination for an acting role in a Marvel film for her performance as Queen Ramonda in ” Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and has starred in films that include “Malcolm X,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back.”
With a B.A. in African American studies, an M.F.A. in drama, and an honorary doctorate from Yale University, she also stars in and executive produces the drama “9-1-1” and won her first Emmy for Outstanding Narrator for the NatGeo docu-series “Queens.”
She has been named TIME 100 and TIME Women of the Year, and her honors include multiple Emmy nominations, a SAG Award, two Golden Globes, 16 NAACP Image Awards, the Black Girls Rock! Icon Award, Critics Choice Career Achievement Award, AAFCA TV Honor, and Glamour’s Women of the Year Award. Bassett also directs and produces projects through Bassett Vance Productions, a company she founded in 2020 to develop diverse, Black stories.
The American Black Film Festival Honors (ABFF) will celebrate the actress at an awards ceremony in Beverly Hills next month and will also honor Dwayne Johnson, Jennifer Hudson and Nigerian actor Damson Idris with the Horizon Award.