Two Tisch Alums Honored at 39th NAACP Image Awards

By Richard Pierce

Last month, Seith Mann, TSOA ’02, took home a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Dramatic Series for the Friday Night Lights episode “Are You Ready for Friday Night?” His meteoric rise from film student to a network television director comes as no surprise to his peers and former professors in the Tisch School’s Kanbar Institute of Film & Television.

      Mann’s thesis film, Five Deep Breaths, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003 and went on to win two best narrative short awards at the L.A. IFP/West Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival. It was selected for screening at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival that same year. Mann’s other television director credits include Grey’s Anatomy, The Wire, Cold Case: Lincoln Heights, and Men in Trees. He is currently working on a feature film.

      Chandra Wilson, TSOA’91, a drama department alumna, won an Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role on Grey’s Anatomy, which also earned her Emmy nominations in 2006 and ’07. Wilson won the Screen Actors Guild Award in 2007 for outstanding female actor in a drama series, and  another SAG Award as part of the Grey’s Anatomy cast, which won Best Ensemble in a Drama Series. 

      The NAACP Image Awards is the nation’s premier event celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice.