Alison Duke, Co-founder of OYA Media Group, is a multifaceted Canadian Screen Award-winning talent; an accomplished writer/producer/director with a two-decade track record in storytelling. Her first feature doc,
Raising Kane: A Rapumentary gained acclaim at the Urbanworld Film Festival in NYC, winning the HBO award for best documentary and setting the stage for her career.
She then collaborated as a producer on numerous feature documentaries, including Andrew Nisker’s
Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home, Dany Chiasson’s
My Joan of Arc and Thomas Allen’s
Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photography and the Emergence of a People, and helmed several powerful social justice films across various genres including stories about Canadian women living with HIV.
In 2017, she brought together five black female directors to direct documentaries for the
Akua Benjamin Legacy Project. This five-part educational series told the story of Black Canadian social justice warriors such as Dudley Laws, Charles Roach, Marlene Green, Gwen and Lenny Johnson, and Rosie Douglas.
Alison produced and co-wrote
Mr. Jane and Finch, the CBC POV television doc directed by Ngardy Conteh George about activist Winston LaRose, winning two 2020 Canadian Screen Awards - The Donald Brittain Award for best social-political documentary and best documentary writing.
Mr. Jane and Finch was the impetus that inspired her to establish the juggernaut production company OYA Media Group with Ngardy Conteh George. The same year Alison directed
Cool Black North, a 2-hour television doc special for City TV, which went on to screen in over a dozen US film festivals.
Alison made her dramatic debut with the powerful short film
Promise Me, which screened at over 30 festivals and earned numerous awards, including two Golden Sheafs for best direction and best scripted for fiction at the 2021 Yorkton Film Festival. In 2021, Alison became the first Black woman to direct a Heritage Minute for Historica Canada on Chloe Cooley.
Alison exec produced Blue Ant Media's 3-part docu-series
Evil by Design: Surviving Nygard for CBC Docs, which earned her a Canadian Screen Award Nomination for Best History Documentary or Series in 2023. Her doc series
Black Community Mixtapes, which she produced and directed with Ngardy Conteh George, has been nominated for several Canadian Screen Awards, including best writing & direction for Alison. She recently wrapped a doc series on music industry injustices for Idris Elba’s Green Door Pictures. Alison is a co-producer for
A Mother Apart with Ngardy Conteh George and Justine Pilmott (NFB), which was selected for the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival. She directed and co-produced
Bam Bam: The Story of Sister Nancy for CRAVE, which is set to have its world premiere at Tribeca in June.
Since the beginning, Alison has been giving back to her community by providing on-set learning opportunities for up-and-coming talent. In 2018, she kickstarted the OYA Emerging Filmmakers program, an initiative to accelerate the careers of Black youth who are graduates of post-secondary film, video and digital media programs in the Canadian entertainment industry under the OYA Black Arts Coalition non-profit banner.