Gina Prince-Bythewood doesn’t do conventional.An upbeat, warm woman, her 2000 debut feature Love & Basketball made a splash for its depiction of a romance between a man and woman who are both avid basketball players.
Her spec script for the film–which she sharpened with the Sundance Institute–ignited a bidding war, with another Hollywood maverick eventually winning the producing rights: Spike Lee.The Secret Life of Bees, her follow-up film made eight years later, starred Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys, and also earned her critical praise.