As a director, producer and cinematographer, Kevin Shaw has created award-winning content for national television networks. Shaw was a segment director and cinematographer on “America to Me,” and additional cinematographer on “City So Real,” both from Oscar- nominated filmmaker Steve James. “America to Me” debuted to high acclaim at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on Starz in August 2018, where it was lauded as the No. 1 television mini-series of the year by The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times.
Shaw’s debut documentary, “The Street Stops Here,” aired nationally on PBS and ESPN in 2010 to rave reviews. The following year, Shaw’s Big Ten Network short documentary on a quadriplegic trying to regain the ability to walk won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Sports Reporting Excellence. His cinematography talents were recognized in 2015 with a National Sports Emmy for ESPN’s FIFA World Cup Show Opens and Teases. Later that year, Shaw produced a documentary about the relationship between megastar Shaquille O’Neal and his collegiate coach, Dale Brown. “Shaq and Dale” premiered on ESPN.
Shaw is a Firelight Media Documentary Lab Alum.
National Teachers Academy (NTA) is considered a beacon for Black children: a top-ranked, high-performing elementary school in the fastest growing neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. As the neighborhood gentrifies, a wealthy parents’ group seeks to close NTA and replace it with a high school campus. How will NTA's community fight to save their beloved institution?
"Let the Little Light Shine follows a remarkable movement: a group of people, some white and some Black, upper-middle-class and low-income, advocating for Black children’s futures. It weaves from classroom to district boardroom, a student’s kitchen to City Hall, meetings for the conversion of NTA and against. In doing so, it delves into the thorny politics of gentrification – the sanitized language of displacement, who and what is lost in the name of growth." -THE GUARDIAN
