Hanelle Culpepper

Hanelle Culpepper is an award-winning writer/director based in Los Angeles, where she operates her own production company, Hillview 798 Productions. Her filmmaking career began when she was selected for Bill and Camille Cosby's screenwriting program for African-American writers. Through the program, Hanelle wrote the screenplay Miss Ella, which was inspired by true events surrounding Hanelle's great grandmother Ella and her adopted sister Rose. This tale of two sisters whose intertwining lives lead to tragedy was a semi-finalist in the Chesterfield Screenplay competition and earned Hanelle a place in the IFP/west Screenwriters Lab.

Hanelle's directorial debut was the short film The Wedding Dress. The romantic comedy about a carefree bachelor who finds a wedding dress in his girlfriend's closet premiered in 2002, kicking off an award-winning trek in film festivals worldwide. It was subsequently shown nationally on syndicated broadcast television.

In 2003, as part of the AFI's Directing Workshop For Women, Hanelle wrote and directed A Single Rose, developed around the character of Rose from Miss Ella. Featuring four original blues songs, A Single Rose has won several Best of awards, including Best Short, Director, Actress, Music, and Cinematography. It was a semi-finalist for the 2005 Academy Awards, and screened at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival as part of the International Cinematographers Guild (ICG) Short Film Showcase.

Also in 2003, Hanelle completed the short film Six and the City, a spoof of the popular comedy Sex And The City featuring six-year-old girls on the playground. Six won Best Short Film at the Ocean City Film Festival and an Audience Award at the Temecula Valley International Film Festival. An official selection of the Palm Springs International Festival of Shorts and the Canadian Worldwide Short Film Festival among other festivals, Six can be seen on network television in Japan and on Air Canada.

After growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Hanelle graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Economics and French from Lake Forest College in suburban Chicago. For graduate studies, Hanelle enrolled in the Master's program at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. While at USC, she worked behind the scenes on multiple student film projects in roles ranging from production assistant to producer.

Following her graduation from USC, Hanelle worked for the Sundance Institute, writer/director Neal Israel (Bachelor Party), writer/producer Kathy Kloves (USA Network's Weekly World News), Academy Award winner Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise). Hanelle was fortunate enough to work with Khouri on her directorial debut, Warner Bros.' Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.