Living in California, Youmans is close to ARRAY—Ava DuVernay’s distribution company, which was responsible for getting Burning Cane onto Netflix last year.
Phillip Youmans
- Words Sharine Taylor
- Photography Justin Chung
- Styling Marquise Miller
The 20-year-old director talks to Sharine Taylor about walking the tightrope between teen prodigy and award-winning filmmaker.
- Words Sharine Taylor
- Photography Justin Chung
- Styling Marquise Miller
If Phillip Youmans had to describe the past few years in one word, he’d choose “blooming.” “It really does feel like a period of tremendous emotional, personal and creative growth,” he says, speaking on the phone from his current base in LA. That’s to be expected from someone with Youman’s CV: Last year he became the Tribeca Film Festival’s youngest featured director and the first African American to receive the revered Founders Award with his debut, Burning Cane—a startling accomplishment for someone who, at the time the film was produced, was in their final year of high school.1
Burning Cane is a visually poetic character study of how a mother, her son and their pastor navigate personal demons against the backdrop of Louisiana’s rural Baptist church. The film neith...
