Working at the intersection of storytelling, impact, and marketing, Dolly Turner is an award-winning filmmaker garnering Sundance, Tribeca, American Black Film Festival, and Pan African Film Festival Awards as well as an Oscar’s short list. In 2019, United Skates premiered on HBO, won the Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award, and was nominated for the International Documentary Association’s Best Documentary. Previously, Turner produced the award winner Alone that garnered the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for non-fiction short, and a nod on the Oscar’s short list in 2017.

Turner also produced the documentary Maynard (directed by Sam Pollard) that earned the Pan African Film Festival’s Best Documentary Director Award, and 25 to Life won the American Black Film Festival’s CNN Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. She led the marketing and outreach campaigns for Finding Fela (directed by Alex Gibney), Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (directed by Shola Lynch), and Black Women in Medicine. She produced the Truth Campaign’s national social impact tour that traveled to 147 cities, and produced Aspire Networks on air branding for the launch of the network.

Her current producing work includes Purvis Young, Young Purvis in production, Rebirth of the Griots: Vol. I, a multi-media project in development, a Spring 2020 HBCU Tour of Oscar shortlisted documentary The Apollo, as well as narrative projects in development. She programs the Da Bounce Urban Film Festival in Amsterdam, the only festival in Europe showcasing African American content from the diaspora.

Turner is a Board member of The Blackhouse Foundation, Co-Director of The Blackhouse Foundation /IFP Multicultural Producers Lab sponsored by HBO and SAGIndie, and contributes to annual programming initiatives. She served on IFP’s Advisory Board from 2009 to 2018 and is a mentor for Johns Hopkins University Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film & Media. She frequently serves as a juror and speaker at festivals and conferences.

In 2009, she launched The Turner Group that connects people to stories, causes, and brands. At The Turner Group, she has developed successful strategic marketing and engagement strategies as well as campaigns for leading brands, causes, film releases, and TV networks.

In her previous roles as a marketing strategist, business development executive, talent manager, and entrepreneur, she is known as an innovator with an eye for talent and trends that takes projects from concept to execution, and a catalyst for financial and organizational growth. She’s been part of the senior management teams at USA Network, American Black Film Festival, South Asian International Film Festival, the Truth Campaign, music companies, and worked with global brands. She began her career in commercial banking, financing global media and entertainment companies.