photo by steed media service

Tracey Edmonds has become the standard of excellence for black executives in Hollywood. Her first foray into film back in 1997 with the wildly popular Soul Food, starring Vanessa Williams and Vivica A. Fox, was a resounding success. Since then, Edmonds has been appointed to head Our Stories Films, making it the first time that an African American has headed a film studio. ro caught up with the talented Edmonds to gain her insight on the entertainment industry. -dewayne rogers

What's your take on the current climate for blacks in Hollywood?

I give Tyler Perry a lot of credit for helping to open that door a little wider for all of us, because until a couple of years ago, most of the major studios were not doing urban films or they [would] allocate only one slot per year for an urban film. So you had all of these black filmmakers vying for this one 'golden' spot each year. And in the process, you end up with a lot of great projects that never get made. But now that we are beginning to see more and more success with African American films, you're beginning to see more studios getting hip, and being willing to make more of those movies.

So you along with Bob Johnson have created Our Stories to facilitate the making of more black movies. How has that effected change for black actors?

Well, we're very new right now. And the top of the year we will go into production [for] all of our film projects. We launched the studio about a year ago, and it's going to be great to have another outlet where we can take our projects and get them produced.

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