Annie J. Howell is a screenwriter and director. Her most recent credit is for the film Yellow Rose (2019), starring Tony-nominee Eva Noblezada, which she wrote with director Diane Paragas. That film is the recipient of eight Grand Jury Prizes for Best Narrative Feature as well as two Audience Prizes, awarded at Urbanworld Film Festival and the Hawaii International Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter called the film heartfelt, provocative and “affecting on almost every level,” while Character Media called it “the immigration film of our times.” Yellow Rose was distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures Worldwide and is now streaming. Howell also wrote the screenplay for Little Boxes, starring Melanie Lynskey and the late Nelsan Ellis, which premiered at Tribeca 2016 and sold to Netflix. She has co-written and co-directed two features with Lisa Robinson: Small, Beautiful Moving Parts (2012, starring Anna Margaret Hollyman) and Claire in Motion (2017, starring Betsy Brandt). Each film premiered at SXSW and played festivals and select theaters. She is the recipient of the Sloan Feature Film Prize, an IFP Emerging Narrative Award for Best Feature, a Nantucket Screenwriters Colony residency, and a San Francisco Film Society/Rainin Foundation grant, amongst other awards. She has taught at institutions such as Duke University, The New School, Ohio University, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and The City College of New York. She lives in New York with her husband and two sons.
