Marcia Smith

Producer Marcia Smith was born on August 31, 1958 in Brooklyn, New York to Anne Marie Brown Smith and Rufus Wilkins Smith. She received her B.A. degree in film and television production in 1980 from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts and her M.S. degree in social research in 1985 from Hunter College in New York City.

After graduate school, Smith served as the senior housing policy analyst for Manhattan Borough President David N. Dinkins and staffed the Task Force for Housing for Homeless Families. Then, in 1989, she was hired as chief of staff for New York City Deputy Mayor for Intergovernmental Affairs Bill Lynch. Smith went on to serve at the Ford Foundation for eight years, beginning in 1992, as a program officer in Rights and Social Justice and then in Governance and Civil Society and as co-chair of the Women’s Program Forum. In 2000, Smith and her husband, Stanley Nelson, founded Firelight Media, a non-profit documentary film production company in Harlem, New York, where she became Firelight’s president. In 2008, she was hired as senior vice president of The Atlantic Philanthropies, where she served for four years. Also in 2008, Firelight Media transitioned to focus on emerging filmmakers. Firelight Media runs The Documentary Lab, the Impact Campaign Fund, FRONTLINE/Firelight Investigative Journalism Fellowship, and William Greaves Fund for mid-career filmmakers, among other programs. Firelight Media has mentored over 140 filmmakers whose films premiered at numerous festivals including Sundance and Tribeca and have garnered some of the industry’s highest awards.

Smith has written for several of Firelight’s films including The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords, The Murder of Emmett Till, and The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. She also published the book Black America: A Photographic Journey: Past to Present in 2002.

Smith has served on several boards including those of the Foundation Center, the Peabody Board of Directors – East Coast, the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society, and the International Documentary Association. She is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Smith is the recipient of multiple awards for her work. In 2003, she won the Writers' Guild Award for Best Documentary Writing and received a Primetime Emmy nomination for The Murder of Emmett Till. In 2016, she received the Muse Award from New York Women in Film & Television and Firelight Media received a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Smith also received the 2019 BlackStar Richard Nichols Luminary Award. In 2020, Firelight Media received the Pioneer Award from the International Documentary Association.

Smith and her husband, Stanley Nelson, live in Harlem, New York. They have three children: Max Nelson, Nola Nelson, and Kai Nelson.

Marcia Smith was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on August 20, 2022.