Prod: Eliyannah A. Yisrael Date: — Day: Day 1 of ∞
A Sunshine Moxie Production · The Forest of God's Answers
Loc: Chicago / LA PG 3 / 8
Section 03 · Crew

The Crew

Above the line, below the line, what she reads, what stays the same.

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PORTRAIT · 03A DIRECTOR
Above The Line DGA / WGA — eligible
Director Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael
Writer Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael
Producer Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael
Creator of Record Sunshine Moxie

Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael is writing and directing The Caterpillar and The Butterfly, her first feature. It is a Black Midwestern film about two women, strangers, who ride the same bus on the south side of Chicago, made in the cinematic tradition she calls Hood New Wave. The film is in active development with a targeted shooting date of spring 2027.

She is a Chicagoan, raised on the south side. Her sensibility was built on two essential ingredients: observation and literature. Before directing independently, she spent ten years in scripted production in Hollywood, working for studios including Sony, FOX, NBC, HBO, Lionsgate, ABC/Disney, Paramount, and Warner Brothers, assisting Sanaa Hamri on Empire and Julie Taymor on The Glorias, work that shaped how she thinks about directing. Her webseries Hermione Granger and the Quarter Life Crisis was covered by PBS, Emmy magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and Elle UK. She lives and works between Chicago and Los Angeles.

Section A · References

What shaped the eye.

Filmmakers
Barry Jenkins, Kasi Lemmons, Cheryl Dunye, Charles Burnett, the L.A. Rebellion
Neorealism
Rossellini, De Sica, Truffaut, Varda — the way everyday people hold the frame
Sound
Kirk Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Chicago gospel, a song from the house
Books
Sophie Kinsella as much as Toni Morrison. The list stays honest.
Place
The South Side. The West Side. The Black Midwest as an origin, not a stopover.
On Set
Every HOD I ever watched run a department with joy and precision.
The Form
Shot on film. Mise-en-scène as a discipline, not a brag.
Etc.
Add or replace any of these with your actual references.
Section B · Continuity

What stays the same in every project.

01 Black people are the whole of the frame. We are not a point the frame is trying to make.
02 Chicago is specific. The south side is specific. The Black Midwest is specific. Every city I shoot in gets the same attention I give my own.
03 Shot on film. Because the medium is part of the argument.
04 There are no limits to my Black imagination.
05 The audience I am working for is the audience inside the frame.
Section C · Below The Line History

The studio years.

Ten years in scripted production in Hollywood — in the rooms where studio television actually gets made. Sony. FOX. NBC. HBO. Lionsgate. ABC / Disney. Paramount. Warner Brothers. Not above the line. Adjacent to it, running the crew-facing logistics that turn a greenlight into a show.

The résumé version is in the press kit. The useful version is the one I already carry: a working knowledge of how a studio crew actually functions, what a real budget conversation sounds like, and how producers make the decisions that shape the work before the director ever sees the set. That is the credential. It is what makes the directing serious.